Page 11 of The Devouring Time

And I need answers. As my initial shock wears off and the truth sets in, dread takes root in my chest, its tendrils crowding against my heart, my lungs. I’ve lost a year of my life. I’ve gone places and done things of which I have no memory.

The one thing I know for certain is that all of this is Hart’s fault. He lured me to his mansion; he had his butler inject me with what might have been something far worse than a mere sedative.

No, wait—he lured James there. If not for a twist of luck, James would have been at Hart’s Leap, not me.

“You look pale,” Evans observes. “Have an oyster.”

“God, no.” I take a deep breath. “I’m just…coming to terms with my situation.” I desperately want another drink, but after the Widdershins Special, I’m not touching a drop of alcohol anywhere in this cursed town. “We should go to Hart’s Leap. Maybe we can figure out what he did to me, and why.”

8

Evans pays for our drinks and food, and I let him without argument. I have no idea how much money might remain in my bank account, or if the cash in my billfold is all I have in this world.

Evans drives us out of town, stopping at a gas station before taking to the desolate coastal road heading north. With no immediate threat to get my pulse up, exhaustion sweeps in, and before long I’m nodding in my seat.

The dream slips in despite the bumpy road. A long, subterranean corridor stretches before me, lit by crystalline globes that radiate a cold, blue light. The remains of murals cling to the stone in flecks of paint, but they’re too degraded to make out clearly without closer examination. Some sort of hieroglyphs are carved deep into the pale brown rock, and my dream-self recognizes them as signage, pointing the way to various destinations.

I walk down the corridor with purpose. There are others with me, companions of some sort, but I don’t turn to look at them. We have to move quickly. If we’re caught, the consequences⁠—

A particularly deep pothole jars me awake with a start. Night fell while I slept, and rain lashes the windshield and sidecurtains. The only illumination comes from the headlights, cutting feebly through the rain to show glimpses of the dirt road.

I rub my neck, aching from the unnatural position I’d dozed in. “How long was I out?”

“Just an hour. I was going to wake you soon.” Evans squints at the rain-streaked side mirror. “We’re being followed.”

His words jolt me into alertness more effectively than the pothole. “What? Are you sure?”

“They slow when I slow and speed up when I speed up. Right now they’re hidden by a curve…there.”

I twist around to see a pair of headlights appear in the darkness behind us. “Who are they? What do they want?”

“In theory, they could be prohibition agents tailing us to see if we’re rendezvousing with a shipment of booze coming in by ship. More likely, it’s whoever tried to shoot you earlier today.”

“I thought we lost them! How did they find us?”

The headlights gain steadily on us; in their dim glow, I glimpse Evans’s generous lips press together unhappily. “That’s what I’d like to know. I never saw them when I was watching you, and I took a circuitous route out of the city to make sure we weren’t followed.”

“Maybe it isn’t them—” I start to say, when the back window explodes into shards of glass.

I duck, reaching for a weapon I don’t have. “They’re shooting at us!”

“I noticed,” Evans snaps. “Take my gun out of my coat pocket. If you fire back, maybe they’ll slow down and we can lose them.”

“No.” I promised myself to never take up arms again for any reason. “I told you before, I’m not going to kill anyone.”

Our pursuers have no such qualms; a Tommy gun stitches a line of bullets through the roof over the back seat.

Evans’s jaw clenches as he grinds his teeth. “Fine,” he snarls, and presses the gas pedal to the floor.

The Studebaker leaps forward, engine roaring. I turn forward in time for the headlights to reveal a sharp curve, following a bend in the coastline, and Evans swears as he fights the steering wheel. Tires slip precariously in the mud, and for a moment it seems as though we’ll go careening off into the water.

Then the road straightens. I look back again to find our attackers have gained too much ground, taking the curve at reckless speed in order to catch up with us. “They’re gaining!”

“I know!” Evans’s eyes narrow in concentration.

Telephone poles whip past in quick succession, and the bumper of the other car creeps closer and closer to ours. The glare of headlights makes it impossible to see driver or passengers; there’s no way of telling how many of them there are or how many guns they have.

Their bumper connects with ours, and the Studebaker briefly loses traction, skidding in the mud before straightening back out. They must want to drive us off the road, then riddle us with bullets before we can flee on foot.