Page 5 of The Devouring Time

Like a door.

My hand hovers over the shelf, uncertain. From James, I know it isn’t unheard of to discover hidden compartments in houses with built-in libraries. They inevitably contain pornography.

If the client is interested in selling it, he refers them to a neighboring shop on Book Row, whose proprietor can properly value the pieces and discreetly move them along to some of his ‘special’ buyers. We generally receive a small finder’s fee as a thank-you.

But from what James says, the hidden compartments are often small and hidden amidst the decorative woodwork. This is a door.

Either Mr. Hart has so much pornography it needs an entire room to house it, or he has some other interests he doesn’t want anyone to know about, which would logically be concealed adjacent to a library. Stolen first editions, perhaps?

I could retrace my steps and ask Mr. Hart if I’m supposed to check inside the hidden room, and his butler simply forgot to tell me. But that might offend him if I’m not meant to know the room exists at all, and as eager as I am to leave, I can’t afford to get thrown out for prying.

Just a quick look, then. To reassure myself there’s nothing of interest inside. If not, I can get back to work as though I never found it. If so…then it depends on how valuable it is.

Irrationally, I take a quick look around, even though the butler with his heavy footsteps could never come upon me unawares. Of course I’m alone in the library.

I swing the door open.

The room is dark, light penetrating only far enough to show me it’s about the size of a small dining room, which is still larger than I expected. A side table stands just within the door with a box of matches and candelabrum on it, so I light the candles to see better.

I’d expected books, or nude photos, or scandalous art. Instead, the room is sparely furnished, with two chairs, a table…and what appears to be some sort of altar, complete with a pair of unlit candles in pewter holders. Between the candles sits a book—not some hoary old tome with a cracked leather cover and time-stained pages, but instead thoroughly modern in appearance. A tapestry hangs on the wall behind the altar, solid black with a symbol combining an hourglass and a moth with skull-like markings on its back. A death’s-head hawkmoth? Something like that.

Disappointment sweeps through me. Hart is clearly some sort of Golden Dawn crackpot—the occult books on the concealing shelves should probably have warned me. With a sigh, I step backward, toward the door.

Something punches me hard in the upper arm, the blow followed by a burning sensation deep in the muscle. Instinct kicks in; I sweep my arm up, knocking aside whatever hit me, while reaching for the firearm I’ll never carry again.

Myers is standing between me and the exit, a syringe in his hand.

I stumble back, confused thoughts tumbling through my head. How did he sneak up on me? I should have heard his distinctive tread…

Unless it was an act from the start.

My arm starts to go numb. “What’s going on?” I demand, or try to. My tongue is too thick, my lips uncooperative. My heart pounds against my ribs, every beat pumping whatever drug he injected me with further into my body.

“What a disaster this has been,” says Hart. He shuffles up behind Myers, watching me with an expression of annoyance.

Myers shrugs. “We gotta make do with the hand we’re dealt, as my old man used to say.”

“I suppose in your line of work, quick thinking is necessary.”

I try to rush Myers, hoping to shove past him, but my legs betray me. Before I’m even certain what’s happening, I’m on the floor, staring up at the two men.

“No,” I mumble. “Don’t.”

I’d cowered in old shell holes while death rained from the sky. Charged the enemy while the men around me fell riddled with machine gun fire, certain I’d be next. Listened for hours as Emerson moaned, while every man who tried to help him got their heads blown apart by a sniper’s bullet.

I’d never felt as helpless as I do now, unable to move my limbs while Hart draws closer to leer down at me.

“Poor Mr. Caine,” he says mockingly. “Are you afraid? You should be.”

He flies up a long, shadowy tunnel—no, I’m falling down it. Farther and farther, faster and faster, something yanking me away from everything I’ve known, until darkness overtakes me.

4

My head hurts.

There’s a horrible pounding behind my eyes, and my brain feels as though it’s been taken out of my skull, poked by angry fingers, and stuffed back in again.

I was dreaming, wasn’t I? One of those dreams that feel so real, waking seems like the dream.