Page 92 of The Devouring Time

The Swarm takes the helmet but merely holds it, while Dr. Dane pulls levers and pushes buttons. The machine sputters to life, then drops into a low hum I feel in my teeth.

We have to act the moment the guards are distracted with the toast. Though Myers didn’t serve the ones to either side of me, curse it all.

Myers returns to stand at the table behind Vitali, a tin cup of wine or whatever it is they’re drinking in hand. “Ready, boss.”

Hart raises his cup again. “To the Timekeepers! To success! To ourselves, masters of our own fates!”

He touches the cup to his lips, even as the other Timekeepers down theirs. Except Myers doesn’t raise his glass, and I don’t see Hart swallow.

Something’s wrong.

62

Vitali, most of his men, and all of the Timekeepers except Hart drink deeply. Even as they lower their bottles and cups, I see the change overtaking them.

Their expressions go slack, all will and intent draining from their eyes. They remain upright, but otherwise go still.

Waiting for someone to command them, just like the patients in the asylum, like the cannibal we encountered in the farmhouse.

No, not waiting for someone to command them. They’re waiting for someone to become them.

“What’s wrong with them?” Dr. Dane asks, taking a horrified step back. Myers moves so he’s between her and the path to the exit.

“For some reason, they imagined I’d share power with them.” Hart chuckles. “I suppose dear Mr. Vitali didn’t check the wine personally?”

“No need,” Myers says. “I assured him I’d done it. I won’t make the mistake of trusting the wrong people, now that I’m in charge.”

The guards to either side of me don’t seem surprised, nor do the handful of others who didn’t drink. They must have been in on Myers’s plot to take over the bootlegging gang.

Myers and Hart picked what must have seemed the perfect moment to seize the power each wanted for himself. But thanks to their treachery, we have far fewer opponents to face. There still might be too many to overcome, but we’ll never have a better chance.

“Now!” I yell, and yank my hands apart.

The desiccated rope disintegrates, leaving only a rough bracelet around one wrist. The guards start to turn; I throw myself to the ground and roll, praying they’ll end up seizing empty air instead of me.

Helen leaps onto the back of the guard nearest her, wrapping her arms and legs around him and sinking her teeth into his ear. He yells in pain and shock, but manages to bring his dagger up and stab her in the forearm.

At the same moment, Adrian grabs the other guard by the wrist and throws him over his shoulder. Another runs to intervene, but Adrian sweeps his legs out from under him. The man’s dagger goes flying, and Adrian scoops it up.

Dr. Dane breaks and runs—or tries to. “Stop her!” Hart bellows, and Myers steps into her path.

She whips out the same pistol she turned on us in her office and points it at Myers. Before she can get a shot off, he grabs her wrist, and for a moment they struggle for control of the weapon.

Then Mary calls out a word in a language I don’t recognize, and the gun explodes between them.

Both crumple to the ground, blood splashing everywhere. Myers’s mouth works—then blood begins to bubble out with every breath. Dr. Dane seems to be in no better shape.

One of my guards grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet, but the other shouts “Boss!” and runs to Myers, as if there’s some hope of helping him.

“No!” Hart rages. “No!”

Beside the machine, the Swarm in the woman’s body lifts the helmet and places it on its head.

I struggle frantically with the man holding my wrist. I have to get away, to do something, anything, to stop what’s about to happen. His grip is like iron, and he meets my gaze with an expression of fury. “You’re all going to pay for this,” he growls.

The point of a dagger emerges from his throat.

He lets go of me, clutching at his neck, a horrible gurgling noise coming from him. Then he falls to the floor, revealing a disheveled Adrian standing behind him.