Page 56 of The Devouring Time

Our server reappears. “Another round?” they ask in a voice somewhere between masculine and feminine. “Or perhaps you’d like your stars read, if you know the date and time of your birth?”

“Er,” I say.

“That man there,” Adrian says, voice pitched conspiratorially low as he nods at Myers. “He seems unhappy.”

“Him?” They don’t bother to hide their disgust. “He traffics in substandard liquor and wishes to sell to us. But we have no need of it. The sea provides.”

Myers flings up his hands and turns away, clearly heading for the door. “Excuse us,” Adrian says, all his focus on Myers even as he takes out his wallet and presses a few bills into our server’s hands.

“May the stars guide your path,” they say with a little bow.

Adrian follows Myers out of the speakeasy like a hound on the hunt, and I scurry after. Thankfully, Myers doesn’t hail a cab, but instead stomps down the sidewalk on foot, his body language proclaiming his rage. Other pedestrians move out of his way, some shooting him glares as they do so.

The streets around the speakeasy are a warren of colonial houses long since turned into apartment buildings, interspersed with Victorian-era tenements, shops, and warehouses. Laundry flaps from lines overhead, and old women chat on the stoops. A few sulky youths lope through alleyways, trying and failing to look adult and world-weary. The whole place reeks of fish and saltwater.

We follow from a distance; my heart speeds up every time Myers leaves our line of sight, and I’m convinced we’ve lost him until we spot him again around the next bend. The streets are laid out in no plan comprehensible to me, and it would be far too easy for him to give us the slip. But Adrian radiates confidence, so I try to trust his experience and stop worrying. It doesn’t work.

Eventually, we reach a line of warehouses with a rail spur running behind them. Adrian motions to me to hang back, while Myers crosses the open space surrounding the spur, then takes a flight of concrete steps up to a loading dock. He knocks on a normal-sized door beside the larger roll-up one; a moment later it swings open and he vanishes within.

“What do you think is inside?” I ask.

“Chrysalis? Or booze spiked with it.” Adrian frowns at the worn brick walls. “They could be mixing it in at Hart’s Leap—no one else is around for miles, and the prohees are unlikely to notice their activity so far into the countryside. They ship it out of the depot there, then to Widdershins, where Whyborne Railroad has its hub. From here, it can spread out across the country, following the rail lines.”

“That seems logical.” My heart sinks—how many people have been turned into mindless automatons by the Chrysalis? And why is Myers, and presumably his boss Vitali, doing this?

“If we can get an eye on what’s happening, maybe we can get the prohees to do our work for us,” Adrian says slowly. “We could call in an anonymous tip, have them raid the warehouse. That would at least disrupt the cult’s plans for a bit.”

“Would they come?” I ask. “The speakeasy was fairly brazen about its existence. They didn’t seem worried about the federal government.”

“True. But it wouldn’t hurt to try. I want to make sure what’s in there, though, in case it’s a warehouse full of stolen artwork instead.”

“Or the Key of Mithras is inside,” I add, though that seems unlikely.

“It would be nice to know one way or the other.” He bites his lip with a flash of white teeth. “Stay here. I’ll see if I can find a window to peek through without being seen.”

I want to object, say I’ll go with him—but the truth is, he has a much better chance without me. So I settle in to watch from the shadows as Adrian casually crosses the rail spur, looking as though he’s heading somewhere other than the warehouse Myers disappeared into.

He vanishes into a gap between warehouses a short distance down. After a few minutes’ wait, he appears again, sliding along with his back flat against the brick wall. His dark suit blends in; I’d never have seen him if I didn’t know where to look. He sticks with the shadows, flitting from the cover of the bulge of a chimney, to a group of barrels waiting to be loaded onto the next train, to a tangle of discarded, rusty machinery whose original purpose I can’t guess.

My heartbeat is almost painful, as though the organ is knocking against my ribs. If he gets caught…

What? Will they beat him, or simply shoot him? Or just force Chrysalis down his throat?

The thought of his handsome face reduced to slackness, all the personality drained away, does nothing for my nerves. We shouldn’t be here. This is too dangerous, it’s going to end badly…

Adrian makes it back to the warehouse Myers went into. Clinging tight to the brick wall, hunched over so no one casually glancing outside will spot him, he makes his way to the nearest window. There’s a downspout right beside it, bolted to the wall with sturdy fittings, and he uses it to boost himself high enough to look inside.

The door to the loading dock opens again.

It’s not Myers who walks out, but a different man, dressed like a laborer. He has a lighter in one hand and a cigarette case in the other; perhaps there’s something dangerous inside he’s not allowed to smoke near. As he lights a cigarette and lifts it to his lips, he turns and sees Adrian clinging to the wall not ten feet away.

Adrian drops to the ground, but it’s too late. The man yells a warning, throws aside his cigarette and lighter, and reaches for something under his coat.

Adrian bolts. Shouting for help, the man pulls out a gun and takes aim.

No.

For a moment, I see Emerson, lying dead in the open space surrounding the railroad tracks. Shot down in a split second, and there’s nothing I can do to help him, the sniper is still there, I’ll only get shot myself…