Time Rovers 03 Madman's Dance (54 page)

It was near dark when Cynda finally staggered back to the hotel room, drained. Despite Anderson’s assurance that the Ascendant would contact her, she’d spent the afternoon hunting for Theo, increasingly desperate as the hours passed. When there’d been no explosions or raging fires in Southwark, she knew they’d triumphed. Without Theo, it felt like a hollow victory.

She’d no sooner changed into a dress when Hopkins arrived at the door.

“We didn’t lose one warehouse,” he reported. “Keats is the hero of the hour.”

She smiled. “He deserves it. Morrisey’s still missing. Copeland has him. He’s trying to use him as leverage for us to turn over Defoe.”

Hopkins didn’t seem surprised. “That Future, Anderson, caught up with me in Rotherhithe after I’d found all the bombs. He told me what was up and then insisted I give him the interface. I’d hoped I could keep it until we could use our own.”

When she didn’t reply, Hopkins began to open and close his own pocket watch over and over in nervous agitation.

“I hope you don’t mind me taking over like this,” he said. “You’re the Senior Rover here and...”

“No, you’re best for this,” she told him, staring at nothing. “I’m too close to this.”

“Is there something between you and Morrisey?”

She looked over at him. “Not sure yet. We spent so much time together while I was healing that we’re like an old pair of shoes. Except he’d like to take that friendship a lot farther.”

“Well, from what I’ve seen he’s a little odd,” Hopkins replied, “but he seems like a good guy.”

She smiled. “I don’t date higher up the company food chain.”

“No one will raise an eyebrow about that.”

Cynda shrugged. There was more to it than just the boss issue. More than she wanted to confront right now.

“You could always quit TEM Enterprises,” Hopkins suggested.

“And go where?” Cynda asked. “Time In Motion won’t hire me. TPB will see to that, especially after my brain reboot.”

“You could work for Guv. You’re used to odd people, so Klein won’t bother you.”

“Maybe. I just don’t know right now.” Cynda looked over at him with curiosity. “What about you, Hopkins? You got a special someone?”

“Had one. She bailed after I was shot. Couldn’t handle it.”

Cynda nodded. “It takes a Rover to understand this crazy job.”

“Or Morrisey. He’s one of us now.”

Which is why we can’t lose him.
“Here,” she said, offering Hopkins the pistol. “In case you run into Copeland. This time, you’ll have the upper hand.”

“Thanks.” He paused as he opened the door. “I’ll let you know when we find Morrisey. I’m sure he’ll be okay.”

Cynda threw him a thumbs-up. The moment he was gone, her control began to unravel. She teetered between tears and the urge to tear the room apart.

“You need to be out there,” Mr. Spider urged.

“I can’t walk all over the East End forever.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to.”

She eyed her delusion. He had an uncanny way of seeing the future.

“Okay, we go out again.”

Cynda had just reached the lobby when one of the hotel’s staff handed her a message. After mumbling a thanks and pressing a coin into his hand, she ripped open the envelope, praying it was good news.

The Ascendant summons you. Your carriage awaits.

“Trap?” Mr. Spider asked, peering down at the note.

“Sure. But if there’s any chance this guy knows where Theo is, it’s worth the risk.”

Sitting at the kerb was an unmarked carriage. It looked exactly like the one that had claimed her at Bedlam. Steeling herself, she climbed in, shoving the bustle behind her. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw a silvery bloom of light directly across from her.

It might have been a mistake to give Hopkins the gun.

A figure slowly faded into view like the Cheshire cat, no weapon in sight. The face was familiar. Black hair, dark eyes. That arrogant smirk.

Too much macassar oil.

This was the real deal.

“It is a pleasure to see you again, Twig.” He gave a sharp rap on the roof with his cane, and the carriage pulled away from the hotel.

“You’re Satyr, the Lead Assassin. You were at Effington’s party,” she recalled.

“Yes, you saved my life and you did it with such grace.”

Cynda snorted, knowing b.s. when she heard it. Memories flipped over like a row of dominos. She saw the silver tube, felt his hand placing it against the side of her head. “Why did you do this to me?” she said, tapping her temple.

His expression didn’t alter. “I had my reasons. I admit it was cruel, but you
are
still alive, and clearly in possession of all your faculties. That, in itself, is quite remarkable.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the best you’re going to get at the moment,” he replied.

“Why do you keep trying to kill me?”

“We do have a history, don’t we, Twig? That evening I threw you under the beer wagon,” he said, smiling at the memory. “Oh, and at the docks. You survived the warehouse fire. Then this,” he said, tapping his own temple. “I’ve never met someone with such tenacity for life.”

He didn’t sound proud of his attempts to kill her, like Mimes had after he’d rammed the knife into her chest. If anything, she heard a hint of remorse. That was the difference between them. Satyr’s eyes always looked pensive as he tried to end her life. Mimes’ glowed with sexual ecstasy.

“Why does the Ascendant want to see me?”

“He said he wanted to meet the woman who had
discomfited the angels.
” Satyr leaned forward, causing her to tense once more. “You knew I was here before I went visible. How?”

“I’m just good.”

“It’s more than that. Come on, tell me.”

Why not?
It would let him know she wasn’t completely unarmed.

“I see a fuzzy outline around someone if they’re
en mirage.
I never could until you blanked my brain,” she said.

Satyr chuckled. “An unintended consequence. I’m very fond of those.” He leaned even farther forward, a curious fire in his eyes. “How
did
you reclaim your mind?”

“I had a friend who wouldn’t give up on me.”

A knowing nod. “You were fortunate.” He relaxed against the seat, apparently satisfied.

Cynda ran a bluff. “You told me a lot of things that night you toasted my mind. I don’t remember all of them. Like where you got that device.”

“I never told you that.”

“Then what did you tell me?”

“That I was responsible for the deaths of Johnny Ahearn, Nicci Hallcox and that insufferable Effington.”

“Why frame Keats for Nicci’s murder?”

“Purely an accident,” Satyr replied. “I saw him enter her house and thought it would be fun to use his form. To be honest, there were others I would have rather let fall into the noose than the sergeant.”

“Why’d you kill Nicci?”

“She thought I was Keats, and in repayment for rutting with her, she was willing to reveal where the explosives were stored. She’d scored that bit of knowledge from Effington, which meant both of them were liabilities.”

Would he know who Morrisey was? She sanitized the question. “A companion of mine is missing. He was helping diffuse the bombs. Do you know where he is?”

Satyr frowned. “No, but I suspect the Ascendant might. He was crowing about something when I was ordered to collect you.” He shifted position against the cushions. “You’ve annoyed a very powerful man, and I’d like to thank you for that.”

“Does your gratitude involve a knife in the chest or hands around my throat?”

“Neither. At least not yet.”

It was a bizarre truce of sorts. She got the sense he wanted to be here, not just because his master had sent him.

“What’s this angel thing about?”

Satyr let out an annoyed sigh. “From what I can tell, the Ascendant claims he’s been talking to a messenger from Heaven.”

“Did you ever see him, the angel I mean?”

A shake of the head. “I tried, but if he actually exists, he was very stealthy.” Satyr carefully adjusted a glove. “Was it really Defoe who tried to kill me?” he asked.

That was the clincher. The only people who knew of Rover One’s real name were her contemporaries, or those ahead in the time stream. “Yes, it was Defoe. He and Adelaide Winston were lovers. He blames you for her death.”

Satyr shook his head. “It was Tobin, not me. He used my likeness. He’s the Ascendant’s favored man at present. Until I cut his throat, that is.”

“No little silver tube for him?”

“He doesn’t deserve that honor,” her escort snapped.

“How much did you know about the Lord Mayor’s Day plot?”

“Very little. I still don’t know all the details.”

She gave him the shortened version of how things had fallen out without mentioning the Futures.

“Good heavens,” Satyr said, shaking his head. “I have been blind. I should have confronted the Ascendant sooner.”

Cynda had to ask. “You’re obviously from…” she gave a vague wave. “Who are you?”

As he weighed the question, Satyr pushed aside the curtain and stared out into the darkness. With a nod, he turned back to her. “We have enough time. You’ve certainly earned that, Twig.” He drew in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “My name is Michael Gordon.”

“Sorry, never heard of you.”

He gave a bemused smile. “I’m surprised given my history. When I was five, my parents were told that I had a monster buried in my mind, and if I didn’t receive psychiatric treatment, that creature would break loose and kill people.”

Cynda blinked. “It did.”

“It needn’t have been that way. I was not a wicked child. If anything, I was rather benign, fond of reading books and grav-boarding.” There were the makings of a grin, but it didn’t quite come to life.

“I had one of those,” she said, dredging up a memory. “I modified it so it would go higher and faster. When I busted my arm, Dad took it away from me.”

“I never tampered with mine. I never tortured animals, or daydreamed how someone’s blood would feel on my hands.”

“So how did you—”

He frowned her into silence. “I had none of the usual markers of a serial killer. Still, I was snared by some innocuous test I took when I was in first grade. I was diagnosed with Pre-Emergent Sociopathic Disorder. That brought me to the attention of the Interventionalists. Are you aware of them?”

She would have spat on the ground in disgust if they hadn’t been in a carriage. “Yeah, I remember those creeps.” Shrinks who thought they could prune a kid and take them in a more “socially acceptable direction.”

“I failed the same test. They tried to pull that crap with my parents. They ignored them.”

Satyr’s face saddened. “My parents did not. To save their beloved son, they gave the psychiatrists
carte blanche
. By the time I was fifteen, I’d undergone medication regimes, behavioral modification, long stints in rehabilitation camps, even Electrical Stimulus Avoidance Therapy.”

Cynda shuddered. She’d heard about that. Attach a series of electrodes to a child, and if they thought or acted wrong,
zap!
The voltage went up each time. It was legalized torture masquerading as legitimate therapy.

“So let me guess—you killed them all, didn’t you?”

“My parents? Oh, no. I don’t hate them. They did what they felt was best. Instead, I killed the one man who went out of his way to persecute me—the psychiatrist in charge of my case. I took a great deal of time with him, no quick death for that fiend. Of course, then I’d validated all his work.” His expression darkened. “At least he didn’t live to collect the applause.”

“So how’d you get here?”

He waggled a finger. “Patience, Twig. This is my story, after all. After I canceled my psychiatrist, I turned myself in. There was the trial, conviction, then more tests, more medication, all of it. When none of it worked, they gave me the advanced treatment,” he said, pointing to his temple.

“They Null Mem’d you? Why? You’d only killed one person, not a city.”

“To reverse my psychopathic idiom, was the official explanation. In truth, they were furious I’d terminated my doctor, as if he were somehow inviolate. After they flushed my brain, I became part of a government study. The goal was to rehabilitate predators into polite members of society. I was put with another psychiatrist who patiently reconstructed me to ensure I wouldn’t feel the need to kill ever again.”

“Didn’t work,” she observed.

He grinned. “No, it didn’t. I rebuilt myself one memory at a time, and I learned from my mistakes. If I was supposed to be a monster, I would become the best there was.”

Cynda glowered at him. “With all you’d been through, how could you do that to me? You know what kind of hell that is!”

The grin faded. “It seemed right at the time. It still does.”

She slumped back in the seat, arms crossed over her chest. The ants were waking up. “Then just get on with it, will you?”

His expression hardened. “Once they realized the treatment only made me worse, my ESR Chip was removed, I was dressed in rags and put in a time pod.”

“They orphaned you on purpose?” She shivered involuntarily. “I figured maybe you’d stolen an interface or something.”

“It was deliberate. When I finally came to my senses, I was in 1768, in Bedlam.”