The Reluctant Assassin

Victoriana


LONDON. 1898

Albert Garrick had been apprenticed to the Great Lombardi for more than ten years, and in that time the little Italian became like a second father to the orphan boy. But young Albert never forgot his first father, who had killed for him, and it was years before the nightmares of those cholera days in the Old Nichol faded and he stopped worrying every time a patch of dry skin appeared on his elbow or his eyes seemed a little sunken.

Lombardi worked him hard but was not cruel and never once struck him unless he deserved it. They traveled the length and breadth of England, working the theaters, and once even took the Boulogne ferry for a summer season in Paris’s Théâtre Italien, where sections of Lombardi’s act were woven into a street scene for a Verdi opera. Lombardi wept at the final curtain every night and often told young Albert that he saw working with Verdi as the crowning achievement of his career.

“I have searched all my life for real magic,” he said some years later as he lay dying from tuberculosis in their digs in Newcastle upon Tyne. “And I found it in the music of Verdi. An Italian. Dio lo benedica.”

Lombardi died that night, forcing his apprentice to appear in his stead at the Journal. The night was not an unqualified success, but many of the doves survived, which encouraged young Albert to adopt the Lombardi name and to fulfill his master’s engagements.

Garrick inherited not only his master’s bookings but his assistant, too. Sabine was the most exotic and beautiful creature Albert had ever seen, and he’d been in love with her since that first day, when he had watched, slack jawed, as she emerged unscathed from Lombardi’s Egyptian saw-box.


THE GARDEN HOTEL, MONMOUTH STREET. LONDON. NOW

And now, in the Garden Hotel, Garrick felt an echo of the passion of his youth as he took his first proper look at Chevron Savano.

She looks like Sabine, thought Garrick, gazing down at the girl.

He cupped Chevie’s jaw in his hand, tilting it back. It’s uncanny, the resemblance.

And another part of his brain told him, There’s a passing likeness, nothing more. Garrick was shaken, all the same. His resolution to pierce this maid’s heart had evaporated like morning mist.

What is happening to me?

Garrick bowed once more to Chevie. “Beg pardon, Miss Savano. I need a moment to gather my thoughts.”

Garrick ducked out of the bathroom and strode to the kitchenette, where there stood what looked like a squat refrigerator of the American style. Garrick pulled open the door and inside, instead of rows of chilled food and beverages, he saw Agent Waldo Gunn, sitting behind a sheet of bulletproof glass.

Garrick knew from Orange’s expertise that this fake fridge was a personal panic pod and was just as secure as the president’s bunker under the White House.

Waldo sat shivering behind the glass, as though he were seated in a real refrigerator. He punched numbers into his phone with shaking fingers.

“This pod is not in the system, is it, Waldo?” said Garrick. “You have been augmenting your security.”

Garrick slammed the door so hard the catch snapped, and the door swung open. The fact that Waldo had been able to secure himself made Garrick’s own escape more urgent. The FBI would be aware of his existence now and would soon be— what was the expression?—hot on his trail. This century was becoming a dangerous place. Time to go home.

No more dallying! he told himself. In there you go, mate. And kill her. She is puny and helpless. One slice across the windpipe will more than do the trick. The noise will be distasteful, but there it is—too late now to be letting your qualms get in the way.

Garrick froze in mid-pace.

My qualms? But I don’t have qualms.

And, in a bolt of self-awareness, it came to him.

These are Smart’s qualms. He was fond of this Savano girl, and this fondness bleeds across my neurons, reinforcing this false identification with Sabine. This young woman is no more a reincarnation of Sabine than she is of Her Majesty, Queen Vic. I shall kill her and be well rid of an adversary.

Garrick stocked up on weaponry from the FBI arsenal, including Duff’s switchblade, which he had casually knocked from the agent’s grasp.

How charming, thought Garrick. The standard of weaponry has really improved. Killing in this time will be so much easier.

This notion cheered him immensely and he reentered the bathroom, bolstered for his grisly work.

Inside the bathroom, Chevie had her foot hooked underneath the unconscious Agent Duff’s chin and was trying to haul him toward her when Garrick’s frame filled the doorway.

“Most enterprising, Agent. Perhaps he has a blade of some sort on his person? One never knows, eh?”

Chevie glared at the assassin belligerently. “You killed them all, didn’t you? Smart, the hazmat team, those officers outside?”

Garrick twirled the blade. “Not all,” he said, nodding pointedly at Duff. “Not yet.”

Chevie withdrew her foot, hoping that Duff at least would be spared. “Riley was right about you.”

“Oh?” said Garrick, prepared to listen to this before silencing this girl forever. “And what did my wayward assistant say?”

“He said that we could never stop you. That you would cross heaven and hell to find him.”

Garrick tousled Riley’s hair, and the boy forced himself not to jerk his head away from the touch.

“Time and space, to be precise,” said Garrick. “And I picked up a few valuable tidbits on my travels.” As he was saying this, Garrick knelt and placed the tip of the switchblade over Duff’s chest. “But one lesson I learned long before this particular jaunt was not to leave any witnesses. Not unless I want to swing for the kindness.”

“Let me do it, master,” blurted Riley. “To make it up to you for all the blundering and trouble I’ve put you to.”

Garrick was touched, but wary. “You would make your bones? Now?”

“Your way is the only way,” said Riley. “I see that now. The time has come for me to embrace my destiny. To back the winning horse.”

Garrick tapped his own chin with the blade, then leaned forward to slice Riley’s cuffs.

“I have no patience for tomfoolery or hesitations, Riley. Strike quickly and earn yourself a footnote in my good books. Otherwise I will be treating you as a hostile.”

Riley took the offered blade. “I am grateful for the chance, master. You can count on me.”

Chevie could only hope that Riley was making a play; otherwise, if he actually intended to do whatever it took to keep himself alive, that might include killing her and Duff both. In any case, she had to appear outraged.

“Don’t do it, kid,” she warned. “You kill a Fed, and there will be nowhere to hide.”

Garrick smiled slyly. “Oh, but there is a place, isn’t there, Agent? Or perhaps a time?”

Riley held the blade in his fist and then moved so fast that even Garrick’s eyebrows lifted. He twirled the knife a full revolution and then slid it cleanly between Duff’s third and fourth ribs, directly above the heart. A poppy-shaped bloodstain blossomed at the spot and quickly soaked the material of the agent’s crisp shirt.

“There,” said Riley, his voice quavering slightly. “It is done. And no big deal either. Shall I send the other one off also? Unto dust, as you always say, master.”

“Murderer!” cried Chevie, aiming a kick at Riley, which Garrick deflected with the heel of one hand.

“All credit to you, boy. That was a clean puncture. In like a hot poker through snow.”

“The girl, master?”

“No,” said Garrick, taking back the switchblade. “Though every strike binds you to me with blood, I must do this one myself.”

Garrick grasped Chevie’s chin with his fingers. They felt like steel pincers along her jawline. He ratcheted her head backward, carefully removed the Timekey from her neck, and laid the blade along her windpipe.

Chevie flinched as her life flashed before her eyes, just as the movies had told her it would.

She saw her teacher’s face, kind and worried, as she rescued her student from the clutches of a briar patch on the Topanga Canyon trail. She saw her father’s motorbike accelerate around a bend on the Pacific Coast Highway, and she knew now he would never return, that his fuel tank would explode as he passed through Venice Beach. She saw her friend Nikki riding a big wave on Cross Creek beach, her hands reaching toward the sky as though she could grab onto a cloud.

The images faded, and Chevie discovered to her surprise that she was still alive. Garrick crouched over her, spine curved, a grimace dragging at the corners of his mouth. A man at war with his demons.

You must prevail, Albert Garrick, he thought. Your mind is your own.

Chevie was afraid to breathe. The tiniest movement would press her tender throat against the razor-sharp blade.

Do it, Garrick told himself. Make the cut. Unto dust.

Riley tried to take advantage of Garrick’s hesitation. “Master, leave the lass be. It’s me you’re after. Leave her, and let’s away.”

Garrick rounded on the boy, pointing the switchblade at his eye. “You are plum correct there, my lad. I have come for you, and you proved yourself worthy. Now make yourself useful and check the gentlemen beyond for heartbeats.”

Riley hesitated at the door. “We are not clear of this yet, master. Perhaps a hostage would be useful?”

Garrick seized upon this notion. It gave him a legitimate reason for not harming the girl.

“Perhaps a hostage would be of use. But I fear this one will rebel when an opportunity presents itself.”

“I will vouch for her,” said Riley.

“Do you understand what you are saying?” asked Garrick. “You are offering yourself to pay for her crimes? Her punishment will be yours? And you yourself are teetering on the edge of the abyss after your escape attempt, even with that kill. I will brook not one more scrap of insubordination.”

“I understand, master. Perhaps she can help us.”

Garrick closed one eye and the other glittered. “Us, is it? There’s an us now?”

Riley waited for his master’s response with held breath. He knew that Garrick would not hesitate to kill Chevie simply to make his argument clear, but something held him back.

I was right. Garrick has changed, Riley observed. His posture, the meat on his bones. Even his tone seems different.

“Very well,” said Garrick, after a tantalizing silence. “We take the girl. But if she does betray me . . . you both pay the price.”

Riley sighed, relieved that Chevie would live, even though she would probably kill him given the chance.

Garrick gazed down at her. “You are as transparent as a window at Fortnum and Mason’s to me, girl. You are thinking at this instant that so long as you are alive, then there is a chance of escape.”

Garrick bent low over Chevie, tracing her eyebrow with the tip of his blade. “Abandon all hope,” he whispered. “For hope has abandoned ye.”

Chevie believed him, and so did the boy.

Garrick was positively ebullient to have Riley back. He had an audience again, swelled to twice its size.

“Numbers in the stalls are up by a hundred percent,” he commented to Riley as they rode in the black cab toward Bedford Square. “It must be a good show.”

Chevie and Riley sat opposite him on the fold-down seats. Chevie was traumatized from stepping over the half dozen federal corpses in the safe suite.

Duff was a jerk, thought Chevie. But he was a human jerk. Chevie had never seen so much death and was more shaken than she had imagined she would be in a combat situation. Her only consolation had been the sight of Waldo Gunn safe inside his panic pod.

At least Waldo knows I am not a murderer.

But this scrap of comfort did little to dispel the shock that crushed her spirit.

Riley, on the other hand, had lived his life in Victorian London, where murder was rare but life was cheap. Many poor children died at birth; if they did survive that first day, the odds were that cholera, smallpox, scarlet fever, or whooping cough would do them in before their fifth birthday. Riley had seen the grim reaper’s handiwork more times than he could count.

Life and death are two ends of the same ride, Garrick had once told him. Nothing to celebrate or mourn.

And so Riley told himself to stay sharp, or he and Miss Savano could be coming to the end of their own rides.

Someday I may mourn all the souls Albert Garrick has done in, he thought. But not this day. This day is for fighting.

It was the early hours of the morning, and the streets were alive with die-hard revelers and city workers, winding along Tottenham Court Road under the eyes of coppers who walked the beat in pairs. Motorized street sweepers scoured the road with their bristled brushes, throwing up wakes of muddied water; and in the shop windows, employees of a dozen electronics stores switched on a thousand television and computer screens.

“Pleasantly warm,” noted Garrick, tapping the knife in his breast pocket, so that Chevie would not forget that it was there or what it could do. “What is the season?”

“Summer,” said Chevie sullenly.

Garrick sighed, and his face seemed to slide like melting butter until the features were his own again.

The face of an accountant, thought Chevie. Or a geography teacher. Not a merciless assassin.

Garrick punched Riley’s shoulder playfully. “Ah . . . summer in London, without the stench of decay in our nostrils, and the two of us finally brothers in enterprise. Could there be anything finer? Almost a pity we have to go home, eh, boy?”

“Why do you want to go back?” asked Chevie.

Garrick tugged at the Timekey around his neck. “In spite of my new abilities, this world is new to me. I am at a disadvantage here, and a fugitive to boot. When I return to my own time, London town will be my oyster. Can you imagine what I could achieve with my understanding of the future? In the field of armaments alone, I could change the world.”

“A psychopath who wants to take over the planet. How original.”

Riley drew a sharp breath, anticipating swift punishment for such an impudent comment, but to his surprise Garrick almost seemed to be enjoying the exchange.

Garrick slapped his thigh. “Oh, Chevron, you are a tonic. The odds are stacked against you higher than the Tower of London and still you are full to the gills with pluck. I see now why Felix was fond of you.”

Chevie snorted. “Felix? Fond of me? You’ve been misinformed.”

“Felix and I were . . . close before he died,” said Garrick cryptically. “Felix was fond of you, even if he was not fully aware of it.”

“So you knew, but he didn’t?”

Garrick half hid a smug smile behind his hand. “In a way, yes.”

The magician’s smile evaporated when the cab turned the corner onto Bedford Square and the house on Bayley Street came into view. The railings were crisscrossed with police tape, and two FBI agents in blue Windbreakers stood out front, flanked by Metropolitan police officers with machine guns slung across their chests. Obviously Waldo had redirected some of the FBI response team to Bedford Square and called in the locals to boot.

“We should have walked,” said Chevie. “We might have gotten here quicker.”

Garrick gnawed on a knuckle. “Quiet, girl. Do not force me to commit murder for the sake of a moment’s silence.”

Garrick considered the heavily armed officers.

Even an individual of my expertise could not be expected to take on the entire police force, he concluded, especially not ones with machine guns. Though according to Smart’s experiences, the bobbies are much hampered by their own constitution. Apparently they cannot even dump vagrants into the Thames anymore. But even so, they would have no qualms about cutting down an assassin attempting to gain access to the building.

While Garrick was thinking, Riley stole a glance at Chevie. Her face was tight and her muscles coiled, though she tried to appear at ease; and it was clear to Riley that she intended to try her luck with Garrick in this confined space.

She thinks I’m on his side, he thought. And I cannot let her know the truth without also alerting Garrick.

Garrick had obviously noticed Chevie’s attitude, for he pointed a finger at the boy. “Riley, tell your new friend to rethink her strategy. If she takes aggressive action, I will gut her before the seat belt is off, and knife the cabbie for spite.”

Luckily the cabbie was separated from them by a plastic screen and did not realize his life was a tool for barter.

“Here we are, mate,” he called over his shoulder. “Bayley Street. You might spot a few celebs up around here. House on the corner went for forty million pounds last month. There’s no recession in this manor, I’ll tell you that.”

Garrick rolled his eyes. “Apparently the verbosity of London cabbies is constant through the ages.” He knocked on the plastic. “I have a new destination for you, driver. Take us to the Wolseley. A friend told me about this café, and I feel it would be just the ticket for our ravenous group. Down Piccadilly, if you please, I do not wish to take the tourists’ route.”

“No worries,” said the cabbie. “I know this city better than the wife knows the inside of my wallet. Strike me dead if I try to cheat you.”

Garrick hid his face as they passed the armed police.

“That is exactly what I shall do,” he said.

By the time the cabbie drew in front of the Wolseley, the restaurant was open for early breakfast. Garrick selected a booth in the window and studied the menu with coos of delight that drew attention from other diners.

“What say you, son? Kedgeree or kippers? Why not both, eh? It is a special occasion, after all.”

Chevie sat by the window, hemmed in between the glass and the magician’s apprentice, hampered by the table.

I need to make a move, she thought. Orange’s last instruction to me was to guard the Timekey. I will not botch another mission. I must get that key back. And I can’t rely on Riley to help me.

All traces of Smart were gone now. The person sitting opposite her was a genuine magician from the past, and as if to prove it, he charmed the waitress, pulling a salt shaker from behind her ear and Felix Smart’s platinum MasterCard from behind his own.

“I believe this is what passes for money these days,” he said, his accent like something from an old black-and-white Sherlock Holmes movie. “Make sure to add a ten percent gratuity for yourself, my dear, pretty as you are.”

The girl was used to big tippers. “I think I’m pretty enough for twenty percent,” she said, not even bothering to smile.

Garrick waved a magnanimous hand. “Why not take thirty?” he said. “We Smarts are a generous breed.”

The waitress pulled a pen from the belt of her apron and took Garrick’s order. The magician selected three kinds of eggs: poached, fried, and scrambled. Kedgeree and kippers. Toast, muffins, and American pancakes with syrup. Sausages, bacon, and potato cakes. Oatmeal and granola. Orange juice, grapefruit juice, and a large pot of coffee. Riley opted for hot chocolate and a full English breakfast, while Chevie asked for a glass of water.

Obviously murder gives a person an appetite, she thought.

“Not hungry, Agent?” Garrick asked her.

Chevie smiled tightly. “I’m feeling a bit off. Must be all the corpses.”

Garrick winked at Riley. “You grow accustomed to that. Look at my partner here, an apprentice no more. He’ll be tucking into his bacon like the hangman’s waiting for him in the square.”

“Yeah,” said Chevie. “Maybe he is. That’s what happens when you kill everyone you meet.”

“I haven’t killed you yet, Miss Savano. Perhaps after breakfast, eh?”

Riley was silent throughout this exchange. He wished only to sleep and perhaps dream of a beach and the red-haired boy.

Beware the undertow—it’ll have yer legs out from under you.

Had the boy really said that, or was his mind inventing a past for himself? Riley shook his head to dislodge the familiar fog that settled over his brain when he was in Garrick’s company. He generally let his mind float away, but today was different. Chevie’s life was at stake as well as his own.

The last thing Riley wanted was a fry-up, but his body was hungry and, as Garrick always said, Eat up, boy. Your next meal will probably be your last.

“You should eat, Chevie.”

Garrick’s hand darted across the table and clipped Riley’s ear. “Chevie? Who are you now, son? The Prince of Wales? Ladies will be referred to by their titles. This is Agent Savano or miss to you.”

Chevie was unimpressed. “Wow, manners. Cool. I had thought you were a murdering psycho, but now you’ve won me over.”

Garrick sighed, weary now of the girl’s comments. “This constant melodrama is so wearing. Isn’t there anything I can do to persuade you to be civil, at least while we are at table?”

Psychology 101: get the subject to talk about himself. Any information learned might come in useful later, if there was a later.

“You could tell me what you are, exactly.”

Garrick seriously considered this. It would be nice to share the details of his transformation; but then again, too much knowledge was too much power, so perhaps he would sketch in broad strokes. “I know that Felix went over the basics with you. Wormholes through time, and so forth. When Felix and I traveled the time tunnel together, we merged. I am still in control, but Felix is definitely a part of me.”

“You killed him?”

“I killed most of him. And it was self-defense: he did detonate a bomb.”

“So you can do stuff with what’s left of Felix? Tricks?”

“Ah, yes, of course. A trick. Ladies love the magic tricks. Think of a card.”

Chevie rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”

“No, seriously now, mademoiselle. Picture a card. Visualize it, as you Americans are fond of saying.”

Chevie couldn’t help it. The Queen of Hearts popped into her mind. It had been her father’s favorite bar on the Pacific Coast Highway.

Garrick clicked his fingers. “I have it. You were picturing the Ace of Spades. The card that signifies imminent and painful death.”

“No, I wasn’t,” argued Chevie.

Garrick twirled his butter knife. “You are now,” he said.

It was an exchange straight out of a penny dreadful, Garrick knew; but he had grown up on stage and had melodrama in his blood.

The food arrived, and Garrick tucked in with obvious delight, laughing as he ate, plucking morsels from several different plates—he ate sausages dipped in syrup and potato cakes smothered in hot chocolate. He was like a child at a party.

“There is no dirt, not a speck of grit,” he declared. “The odors are uniformly pleasant, and what is supposed to be hot is hot.”

Chevie watched the magician closely, mentally going over every detail of his face and mannerisms in order to commit it all to memory.

Middle-aged. Maybe early forties, hard to tell. Pale complexion. Teeth seem a little long. Yellowed. Dark eyes. Blue, maybe, deep-set, with a bulbous brow. Black hair starting to gray. Long and straight. Slim build, but wiry. Nothing obviously threatening about him. This guy would never get the part of a Victorian villain in a movie about himself.

Surely my chance will come, thought Chevie, but every time she was on the verge of launching herself at the magician, he saw the intent in her face. It was almost as if Garrick could read her thoughts.

“You are wondering if I can read your thoughts,” said Garrick suddenly, waving a nub of sausage at her. “I confess that I cannot, but I do have a certain expertise in the science of movement, what you might term kinesics or body language. Your violent intentions are as clear to me as the Times’s banner headline.”

Chevie glared at him. “Yeah? What’s my face telling you now?”

“The FBI often employ the term acceptable collateral damage,” continued Garrick calmly. “If we were to engage here, I can guarantee that at least half a dozen members of the public would be killed; the number could be as high as ten, if you really inconvenienced me. Felix assures me that you have a certain competence in the martial arts, but you are unarmed, and I have three pistols and a blade on my person. Do you think the Bureau would reward you for provoking me in a restaurant?”

Garrick was right, and Chevie knew it. She could not afford to be aggressive in such a public area.

Again, Garrick read her face. “You have come to the right decision, Agent. After all, these are real people all around us. People with families and loved ones.”

Garrick flinched as if struck, as his own words connected him to a memory of Smart’s.

“Loved ones,” he repeated, pulling the Timekey from under his shirt. “Felix knew that his father had taken a female companion somewhere in London after his mother died. Charles Smart never revealed whom, and Felix presumed that once his father disappeared into the past that was the end of that. But I have spied on many a lovesick mark, and passion will drive a man to almost any lengths.” Garrick paused, flipping the Timekey with his agile fingers. “His father built a second pod in London, but Felix could never track it down. And it occurs to me, as a student of human foibles and failings, what better reason to construct a backup pod than to sneak back to this century and visit a secret flame?” Garrick activated the key’s small screen and clicked though the menus until he came to a trip log.

“We have several jumps from Bedford Square, as one would expect, the last one in the early 1980s. And that should be the end of it—but, no, I have some coordinates here. More than a dozen more jaunts logged to and from the same spot. Smart, you amorous old dog. Whoever this woman is, you could not stay away.”

Garrick stuffed the Timekey inside his shirt. “Riley, my son. We have found our way home.”

Riley did not speak, but his eyes spoke for him: I am not your son.

Surprising that Garrick could not decipher that.

Garrick used the GPS on Smart’s phone to navigate to the coordinates on the Timekey. Felix Smart’s memories acted like a living tutorial. Whenever Garrick arrived at a new screen, he simply concentrated for a moment until its workings came to him.

They walked from the Wolseley side by side, like family, past the Ritz and onto Piccadilly. Garrick enjoyed the early morning sun on his face, while Chevie’s strides were stiff with tension and Riley walked as though dazed with exhaustion; in reality he was overplaying his fatigue so that Garrick would not press him into conversation, and he could steal a moment to think.

I wish there was some way to signal to Agent Savano, he thought. We can only escape by paddling in the same direction.

He tried to catch Chevie’s eye, but she was lost in her own thoughts.

Surely there is an alert out for Garrick at this point, Chevie was thinking. Maybe he will be recognized.

It was doubtful, as Garrick no longer looked like Agent Orange. The only people who had Garrick’s true description were walking beside him, and it seemed as though Riley had chosen which side he was on. And she would not have held the boy’s choice against him had it not been for the murder of her colleague.

The city center was becoming busy as shops opened for business. In spite of the congestion fee, the streets were soon jammed bumper to bumper with vehicles. The day was shaping up nicely, clear silver skies that would soon turn blue, and a brisk breeze that could stir even the most jaded time traveler. The unlikely trio strolled together through Mayfair, Chevie hoping against hope that somehow the Bureau had tracked them and there was a sniper drawing a bead on Garrick’s crown even as they walked.

Wishful thinking. And, even if somebody does shoot this Garrick creature, it might not even harm him. It could just make him angry. Who knows what this guy is capable of?

Chevie told herself not to give up. One of Cord Vallicose’s maxims was that there was always an opportunity waiting to be noticed; an agent had to be ready when it presented itself.

Whatever it takes to stay out of the past, she thought. I am not going into the past.

But Chevie’s subconscious knew, even if her conscious mind didn’t yet realize it, that she would hop, skip, and jump into the past whistling “The Star-Spangled Banner” if it meant getting away from this lunatic magician.

They arrived at the coordinates programmed into the Timekey without any sniper fire or indeed incident of any kind. Garrick held his two hostages tightly by their necks, long nails digging into their collars.

“Do you know, Agent Savano,” he said conversationally, “that I could kill you now with any one of these fingers?” To demonstrate which fingers, he drummed them in a creepy fashion on Chevie’s flesh. “One of my trade secrets is that for the last ten years I have been coating my nails with furniture lacquer. They are hard as steel and sharper than a barber’s cutthroat. I can slit any package with my thumbnail and explore its contents behind my back for my famous second-sight trick. I have never revealed that to a living soul, but something about you makes a person want to unburden.”

Chevie did not appreciate being told a magician’s secrets; it made her think that she might not live much longer.

Riley gazed down the length of the street. “Are we here, master? Is this the way home?”

They had arrived at Half Moon Street, and it looked just like the movies said a Mayfair street should look in the summer, with a row of fine old five-story buildings that had been converted into small businesses with a few cafés and pubs. The street was still quiet at this time of the morning, and the sidewalk was barricaded by stacks of cardboard and trash that had yet to be collected by the garbage truck. An old lady in boots was hosing the night’s detritus from the entrance to an antiques shop.

“Now, where would be a good place to pick up antiques?” wondered Garrick.

In the past, thought Chevie, and she was suddenly afraid for the old lady.

Chevie felt Garrick’s grip loosen slightly as his fingers seemed to grow a little shorter. She glanced up and saw that Garrick was hunched now. He spasmed as though racked by a silent fit of coughing. With every retch, his physical self altered until he resembled Felix Smart once more.

That was my chance, Chevie realized, and I stood here gawking.

Garrick’s fingers tightened on her shoulder once more. “You should have had a go there, Agent,” he said, sweat pasted across his brow. “Those transmogrifications take it out of a fellow, yes, they do.”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he called to the elderly lady. “Perhaps you can assist me?”

The lady did not look up from her labor. “I can assist you at nine. Shop opens at nine. Most of the stuff I have is really old, so another thirty minutes won’t matter.”

Garrick tapped her window. “I see you specialize in Victorian.”

The lady released the hose trigger and swiveled her head upward to take in Garrick.

“Yes, and I will still specialize in Victorian at nine.” There was probably more British sarcasm in the tank, but the lady changed her tune once Garrick’s adopted face registered.

“Wait a moment. Don’t I . . .” And her eyes drifted as though trying to locate an elusive memory. “Your face. It seems so familiar.”

Garrick’s smile seemed utterly genuine. “People tell me I look like my father.”

The lady dropped the hose. “Oh . . . Oh, my. Felix? You are Felix, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am Felix,” said Garrick, making it sound like he was the new messiah.

“Oh, goodness. Oh, dear me. Felix.” The woman’s face was transformed utterly. Gone was the cynical tradeswoman of moments before, and in her place stood a wide-eyed, flustered lady. “Your father said you might find me someday.”

Garrick placed a hand on her shoulder. “And here I am.”

“Yes, you are here. Plain as day.” She drew a worried breath. “Oh, are you hungry? You must be thirsty? And your young friends? They’re probably hungry and thirsty.”

Garrick shrugged as if to say, We are terribly hungry and thirsty, but I am too polite to mention it.

“You must come in. Please come inside.” The lady fished a door key on a chain from under her blouse, then jabbed it into antiques shop’s front door.

“But, madam,” said Garrick, smiling, “it is not yet nine o’clock.”

The lady knew very well she was being ribbed. “Oh, it’s always a question of time with you Smart boys.” She offered a gloved hand. “I’m Victoria. Your father’s . . . friend.”

For a moment Garrick’s eyes glittered in Felix Smart’s face.

“I believe we have come to the right place,” he said, bending to kiss Victoria’s cheek.

Not only was the lady named Victoria, but the antiques shop was called Victoriana. When she led them through the doorway and into the shop itself, Riley could not stifle a gasp, for it was like stepping back into his own time, without the usual stink of animals, sewage, and nearby death, which in truth he did not hanker for, in spite of his current circumstances.

I have always lived in the shadow of death, he thought, feeling his heart pump like a steam piston as he spied a set of brass andirons that were almost identical to the ones flanking his and Garrick’s own hearth in Holborn.

And somewhere in this place is the gateway back.

Unlike his master, Riley was in no hurry to return to the nineteenth century’s Great Oven. He had experienced wonders during the night and also freedom, however fleetingly, and now had a taste for it.

I could exist here in this future of marvels, if only Garrick would release me.

But Riley knew that there was only one way his master would ever release him.

The lady led them through a showroom that glowed softly with the amber warmth of sunlight on wood. Her small shop was presented as a Victorian drawing room, but in this drawing room everything was for sale. There were discreet tags on each item but no prices. If you asked for the price, you were halfway to buying.

What Chevie knew about antiques could be written on the back of a postcard. The oldest thing she’d ever owned was a seventies surfboard that had once belonged to world champion “PT” Townend, but even she could tell that the stuff in this room was expensive. The pieces hummed with history, and it was impossible to look at the bureau without wondering who might have once written letters on its folding lid.

“What a wonderful emporium,” said Garrick, all charm and grace. “The pieces are in remarkable condition.” He stroked the leather cushion of an angular recliner that was less ornate than the other chairs. “Is this a William Morris, Victoria?”

Victoria retraced her steps to the chair, picking up the cushion and hugging it close as though it were a baby.

“Yes. One of the very first. This was the last thing your father sent to me.”

“It seems old,” said Garrick, tracing the grain with his finger. “Shouldn’t it be almost new?”

Victoria replaced the cushion. “Ah, you see, therein lies your father’s genius. The extra power needed to transport this chair from the nineteenth century would be enormous, so Charles simply bought a field in Greenwich, which he knew would still be under grass, and he buried items there. When he comes to call, he brings a little label with some directions. It is his version of roses and champagne.” She flicked the chair’s label with a finger. “I still use the labels, as you can see. Anything to keep me going until his next visit.”

“You two have something special,” said Garrick, and to Chevie’s trained ear the assassin sounded sincere, even touched.

Victoria stroked his face, fingers rasping against stubble. “Yes, we do, and the next time he comes I’m going back with him for good. I’ve been taking the bisphosphonates for six months now. We’re to be married.” Victoria’s eyes were bright with excitement, but she was a decent woman and realized the discomfort her news would cause her beloved’s son. “I know this isn’t easy for you, Felix, to find out like this. But your father was so lonely—he missed you. He kept an eye on you, but it was too dangerous to make contact. Charles said that if you ever found me it might be because you were ready to understand why he left. He hoped that would be the case.”

Victoria led them through a door at the back of the shop floor and into open-plan apartment with an ultramodern minimalist kitchen and living room. Victoria filled the kettle, then sat them at an oblong table that basked in the latticed rays of sunshine pouring through the blinds. Pictures of Charles Smart and Victoria lined the walls. Apparently they had been having fun all over London for quite a few years.

Victoria sat at the head of the table and composed herself. Chevie guessed she was about seventy—a petite, striking lady with fine, porcelain features and eyes that were so wide and green they were almost feline. Her hair was mostly dark, but streaked with blond and gray. She wore a period bustier getup that would not have been out of place in a BBC costume drama.

“So, everyone,” she said, “are we all in the loop? The time loop?”

Garrick was getting anxious. His eyes darted around the room, and his brow glistened. Riley couldn’t understand it; there was no danger here. Garrick could face down a room full of armed Tartars without a drop of sweat sliding down his beak of a nose. Now here he was, suddenly agitated in the company of one old lady. What was wrong?

Garrick answered for the group. “Yes, yes. We are all aware of Charles Smart’s . . . that is, my father’s experiments and discoveries. We have reason to believe that he is in serious danger. We need to travel back in time to assist him. So, if there is a WARP pod here, we need to use it.”

Victoria pursed her lips. “Hmm. Charles hoped you would find me so we could get to know each other, but he was also afraid that you might come for the secrets of the pod. He said that the FBI were a sneaky bunch, and I should watch out.”

“I see,” said Garrick, teeth gritted. “But Charles was my . . . father. I am his boy, surely you don’t need to watch out for me?”

Victoria wagged two index fingers at him like six-shooters. “Ah, you may be his boy, but Charles said that you were potentially the worst of the bunch. You were more interested in the government contracts than the science. You pushed things forward before they were ready. Your father told me all about the wormhole mutations. He said time travel can give you cancer without the bisphosphonates.”

Charles Smart’s monkey arm and yellow blood flashed through Chevie’s head. Mutations.

“But Father is in trouble. We need to save him.”

Victoria’s eyes were shrewd. You don’t keep a business open in central London without being seriously smart. “How do you know Charles is in trouble? He said you can’t find him. None of the other pods go to where he is, and you can’t just build another pod. Not without Charles.”

Garrick frowned and shuddered as if his system were under attack from a virus.

“What about this?” he said, plonking a large handgun on the table. “Now, why don’t you tell me where the pod is?”

Victoria pounded the table with delicate hands while the kettle whistled behind her. “What kind of son are you?” she demanded. “You broke your father’s heart, and now you’re threatening the woman he loves. You villain.”

Garrick covered his eyes, uncomfortable in the light. “Yes, villain, I accept it. Now, where is the pod?”

Victoria rose to her feet. “Never, Judas. You shall get nothing from me.”

“Then I shall kill you,” said Garrick. “As I killed your beloved Charles.”

Victoria paled, then staggered back a step.

“You are not Felix Smart!” she declared.

“No, madam,” declared Garrick. “I am not. Felix Smart has gone the way of his father.”

Victoria made a noise close to an animal howl and pounced on Garrick with surprising speed.

“Stupid woman!” said Garrick, and slapped her hard on the side of her head. The blow felled them both, for no sooner had Victoria crumpled to the ground than Garrick himself bent double and threw up across the table.

Chevie saw a chance and twisted in her chair, grabbing the back of it and swinging the entire thing at Garrick’s head with all the aggression and force she had learned working out in federal gyms.

Garrick managed to get a forearm up, but the chair smashed across his arm and head, driving him to the ground. The assassin went down, blood smearing the floor as he slid on his forehead.

Chevie did not relax for one second. Garrick might be down but he was far from out, and there was his side-swapping, murdering sidekick Riley to worry about.

“Stay out of this, kid!” she warned Riley, who was moving in her direction.

“No, Chevie,” said Riley. “You don’t understand.”

There was no time for understanding now. This situation was all about Garrick and how to neutralize him. There would be plenty of time for understanding stuff later.

Garrick himself reinforced her decision when he rolled over and glanced up at her, through a sheet of blood and gasped, in Smart’s voice: “Chevie. The Timekey.”

“Felix? Is that you?”

He held out the key. “Take it.”

Chevie reached out, grabbing the lanyard. She slung it around her neck, but before she could retreat entirely, Smart became Garrick once more.

“No. That is mine,” he growled, grabbing the key and yanking it toward him. For a thin man he had a lot of strength, and Chevie was off balance and powerless to stop her tumble.

Riley saved her, tipping the entire table over on his master. The boy, too, was stronger than he seemed. The table’s edge landed squarely on Garrick’s shin, splintering the bone.

“What?” said Chevie. “You’re on my side now?”

Riley held up his left hand and Chevie saw blood congealed on the thumb.

“Always,” he said, and Chevie understood. The boy was a magician’s apprentice. He had pierced his own flesh, not Duff’s, risking Garrick’s wrath to save the agent’s life.

“We should go, Agent,” said Riley urgently.

“Yeah,” said Chevie, then rubbed her throat and coughed. “Yep. Going would be good.”

She tucked the Timekey inside her blouse and ushered Riley toward the door.

Shots punched through the table and into the ceiling. Garrick was still fighting, in spite of the terrible agony he must be feeling.

“We should have killed him,” said Riley. “Killing the devil cannot be a sin.”

Until quite recently, Chevie would have scoffed at this statement for its superstition and dubious morality, but now she was coming around to the idea.

“Later,” she said. “Later.”

They were close to the stairway when half a dozen shots ripped into the bannisters, showering them with wood chips. Chevie grabbed Riley’s collar and shunted him behind the sofa.

Riley fell and saw between the sofa legs that the lady was recovering her senses and had rolled onto her elbows. “Victoria is alive.”

“Good. I doubt Garrick will spend a bullet on her when we are the ones breaking his bones with furniture.”

The broken bone did not hurt Garrick as much as it would a normal person. The quantum magician instructed his nerve endings to hush their messages to the brain, which took a little of the white-hot pain from his injury. He was perfectly aware of the damage done to his limb. His internals were clearer to him than the calcium tungstate photographs those Frost brothers had used to see inside mice. He was suffering from a compound fracture of the tibia inflicted by his own boy. He tried to heal himself, but the process was infuriatingly slow, and he could feel it draining his energies.

Garrick felt the injustice like rising nausea.

“Riley!” he called. “Riley.”

Riley ducked low behind the sofa as if the word could harm him.

“We need to be leaving,” he whispered to Chevie. “You’re the expert in these matters, being some form of agent. Lead on, I says.”

Chevie did not feel like much of an expert.

I am only seventeen, she wanted to say. I shouldn’t even be here. I am not even a legitimate FBI agent, and my program was canceled. But she didn’t voice these thoughts. Agent Chevron Savano considered herself a teenage professional, and Riley was depending on her.

She wiggled past him, making sure to keep her head down.

“We need to help Victoria.”

“Draw Garrick away and that will save her life—he don’t care a fig for her. It’s us and that Timekey he wants. Garrick will follow his target every time.”

Riley was right.

“Okay. We go out the back way.”

There had to be a yard, or a doorway. If she could make it to a phone, then Garrick was dead and buried, no matter how many faces he had.

Then I am going to home to California, where the sun shines and there are no death-dealing magicians from the past.

Garrick took a few more shots, but he was firing blind, just trying to corral them to the kitchen.

Chevie squatted on her hunkers, pulling Riley’s face close to hers.

“Here’s the plan. We run to those back stairs and see where they go.”

“Is that a plan?” asked Riley. “Strikes me more as a notion, or a smidge of an idea. Plans have stages and steps. Jinky twists and the likes.”

“Zip it, chatterbox. You ready for the plan?”

Riley nodded.

“Right. After three. Run like the devil himself is on your tail.”

Which in a way he was.

Chevie counted to three, then hurled a handy vase toward the wall, where she thought it would smash and distract Garrick.

She thought wrong.

Garrick shot the vase out of the air as it twirled, being a practiced marksman from his years in Her Majesty’s army.

Perhaps this is not a brilliant plan, thought Chevie, but it was too late, as Riley had already bolted for the stairs. Luckily the boy kept himself low and out of Garrick’s sight line.

He won’t have a restricted sight line for long, she realized. Once he gets that leg free, we’re as good as dead.

Chevie raced after Riley, feeling the gunfire impact the wall over her head before she heard it. They ran pell-mell down the stairs, barely managing to stay upright in their haste. The staircase was narrow and dim, but with familiar-looking thick power lines running along the skirting board.

No, thought Chevie. No, no, no.

The steps led down to a small basement. Chevie and Riley tumbled into the room, instinctively searching for an exit. There was none. The only natural light came from barred windows at pavement level. The legs of shadowy pedestrians threw stick shadows on the wall.

Chevie actually stamped her foot. “No way out! I don’t believe it.”

Riley patted the walls with his palms, hoping for a secret passage.

Chevie cast around the room, searching for something, anything, that could be of use to them.

Riley pointed to a blocky shape under a tarp in the corner. “I would wager that if we remove that waterproof sheet . . .”

“I know what it is!” shouted Chevie. “I know. But . . .”

Riley glanced anxiously toward the stairwell. Victorian oaths and grumbling echoed from above.

“My master is not happy.”

“I gathered that.”

“He is coming.”

Chevie paced a little. “Yeah, I know. Death the magician is coming.”

“Should I zip it?”

“Yeah . . . No.” Chevie balled her fists in frustration. “I’m not even a proper agent, kid. I was supposed to keep an ear open in the lunch hall, that’s it. No one ever said anything about time travel.” Chevie slapped her head. “This is insane. I can’t do this.”

A shot smashed into the bannisters, then there was a guttural roar—no words, simply emotion.

Riley twisted a splintered banister free, brandishing it like a stake.

“Chevie. I’ll guard the stairs, perhaps even get a lucky blow in. You must activate the machinery.”

Chevie knew the boy was right. She dragged the tarp, revealing the WARP pod underneath.

From upstairs: “Riley! You broke my leg.”

“That ain’t a happy man,” said Riley, pointing with his makeshift stake.

He grabbed another corner of the tarp with his free hand, and soon the pod was uncovered. “Make it work, Chevie.”

Riley decided to get the show on the road himself and began pounding buttons on the computers rigged up to the pod.

“No, no,” said Chevie, elbowing him out of the way. “You need this.” She took the Timekey from around her neck and slotted it into a computer drive on a console that was smaller than the one in Bedford Square.

Perhaps it will be too complicated, she half hoped. Maybe I won’t be able to fire it up.

No such luck: as soon as the Timekey clicked into place, the pod shuddered into life, expelling steam from various vents, setting the power lines humming. Damper barrels vibrated on the floor.

This one is smaller, realized Chevie. Version 2.0.

The Timekey activated a tiny screen with yellow graphics that wobbled every few seconds. The screen crackled.

That sounds like wires burning.

No. Don’t think about that. It’s just warming up. To confirm this thought, a little cartoon bird appeared on the screen. The bird was without feathers and shivering. A speech bubble popped out of his beak: I’m just warming up.

Chevie gave Riley a thumbs-up. “All systems go. No problems.”

Slowly the bird sprouted feathers. It seemed as though Charles Smart had had a sense of humor.

From the top of the stairway there came a meaty slap as something lurched across the entrance.

“Riley,” cried a rasping voice that seemed full of pain, both emotional and physical. “My son, no longer. My partner, never again.”

Four shots blasted chunks from the brick walls of the basement. A series of thumps and curses followed. If Garrick was sliding down the stairs, he would soon be able to take a clear shot at them.

“Get your old battered self down here,” called Riley, attempting bravado. “I have a nice sharp gift waiting for yer organs.”

Garrick fired another shot in reply and fragments of brick stung Chevie’s cheek.

This is like Star Wars, thought Chevie. We’re the rebel base and Garrick is the Death Star.

The bird sprouted more feathers.

“Chevron? Agent, hurry,” said Riley urgently.

“Coming.” Chevie fought the urge to slap the alt-tech computer. “Get into the pod.”

“Inside?”

“Yes. Get in.”

Riley did not like the idea of backing himself into an even smaller corner, but the only way out was in.

Legs flashed by on the pavement outside. More thumps on the stairs. Chevie thought she saw a scrabbling hand out of the corner of her eye.

“Riley! You cannot escape me.”

In the pod, Riley sat on the bench, hands clenched on his knees.

The bird was fully clothed in feathers now, and the speech bubble said: i am all warmed up.

Then the bird disappeared, and a menu began loading on screen.

“Yeah, yeah, what are my options?” shouted Chevie, as though that could speed up the ancient computer.

There were two choices: systems check or activate wormhole.

She selected activate wormhole and, after a few fizzling seconds of nothing much, the familiar corona of orange light bloomed inside the pod.

“No!” came a voice from the stairs. “I forbid it!”

Two shots plowed into the concrete floor, throwing up sharp chips.

Almost in his sights, thought Chevie, and she realized that she would have to run the gauntlet to reach the pod herself. For two seconds Garrick would have a clear shot.

The longer I wait, the sooner he shoots me.

Chevie was prompted to remove her key, and the bird reappeared with a countdown in his speech bubble. Thirty seconds. Chevie had half a minute to get herself into the past.

Thirty seconds. No time to think.

“Run!” called Riley from inside the orange glow. “Run!”

She did, diving the last few feet into the belly of the pod. She noticed immediately how cold it was in there. Freezing. Her breath burst from her in clouds, then crystallized immediately. There was frost on Riley’s hair and brows.

“When do we go?” he asked. “Why are we still here?”

Chevie did not answer, just turned to face the pod’s doorway. Through the orange light she could see Garrick dragging himself down the stairs like a corpse that refused to lie down and die.

“Infernal time machine!” declared Riley, striking the bench. “Let us away!”

Garrick’s head was cocked and his skeletal face pointed their way. From the depths of sunken sockets, his eyes were locked on them, beaming malevolence into the pod.

Chevie stood and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Wake up, Victoria! Wake up and run.”

Garrick raised his weapon to fire but thought better of it, unwilling to risk damaging the WARP pod. Instead he continued his grim crawl.

The pod began to beep. The complicated series of whoops and whistles was matched by small lights on the fuselage.

Chevie suddenly remembered something from Orange’s time lecture. The tests were pretty successful, he’d said. There was a small number of aberrations, usually on the return trip, but less than one percent, so acceptable in a scientific sense.

Oh, my God, she thought. We haven’t been taking bisphosphonates. I don’t even know what those are. We could come out the other end with monkey parts or dinosaur heads.

But she didn’t say anything to Riley, because her voice had been snatched away by the orange light. She didn’t lay a warning hand on his shoulder either, because her hand was gone, whisked away as though she were made of sand.

I am sand in the wind, she thought.

As am I, replied Riley in her mind.

The last thing to go was their sight, so they completed their dematerialization watching Garrick reach the bottom step and begin his lurching hop across the floor.

He’s going to make it, thought Chevie. We’re not rid of Albert Garrick yet.

She would have closed her eyes and bowed her head, but her head was gone, and now so were her eyes.