Chapter 7 Toolie
Toolie
Iwoke up face-down in six centuries of shit.
The first thing I noticed was the cold, then pain, then the thousand little agonies of a hangover weaponized by time travel.
My mouth was stuffed with something that tasted like rotten moss and the back wall of a whiskey barrel.
My ears rang with a high, synthetic whine, like the echo of the world splitting open.
I rolled over and tried to sit up, only to bash my forehead on a ceiling that seemed to have dropped about three feet since the last time I was conscious.
The stones pressed against my back were slimed and rough.
I spat, cleared my mouth, and found enough light to see that the floor was moving: a slick, lumpy river of water and other things running toward a black, grated hole. My hands came away slick and stained.
Above me, a single torch guttered in a sconce set just far enough from the bars to make escape a bad joke.
I squinted. The bars were iron, twisted into shapes that meant business, and banded every twelve inches with rivets the size of baby teeth.
Moss bled down the walls in veins, feeding on a centuries-old cocktail of damp and despair.
The stink was chemical and alive: human waste, black mold, the vinegar reek of old bodies packed in too tight.
There were three shapes on the floor of the cell, huddled together at the far end. One of them was on his feet, pacing like a caged wolf.
Moab.
He filled the little space with his back and shoulders, stamping tight laps from the bars to the rear wall.
The torchlight hit his skull and threw a razor shadow up onto the ceiling, long and desperate.
He muttered to himself, half a prayer and half a threat, and when he turned, I saw his eyes were wild.
Sweat slicked his scalp and pooled at the line of his jaw.
He looked at me. “Fuck, you’re awake.”
“Lucky me,” I managed, and found my voice was two sizes too small for my own throat. “Where are we?”
He spread his arms and let the answer speak for itself. “Wherever it is, we’re not leaving.”
I pushed myself upright. My head spun, and my stomach lurched, but I made it to my feet on the second try.
My jacket was gone, and so were my boots.
The chill of the flagstones went straight up the bones of my legs.
I glanced at my forearms. The shamrock tattoo was still there, but the skin beneath it had gone a deadman’s gray.
I shuffled to the bars, grabbed hold, and pressed my face to the chill. The hall outside was more dark than not. Every twelve feet, another cell, another torch. I heard voices—whispers, sobs, the rattle of chains on stone. Farther away, a scream, sharp enough to flinch the torchlight.
Moab resumed his pacing, every turn scraping his boot soles like a warning shot. He was hunched, chest tight, jaw grinding so hard I could almost hear his teeth.
Across the cell, Scarlette sat with her knees pulled to her chest, back braced against the damp wall.
Her hair was a mat of tangled flame, plastered to her cheek.
She looked pissed, which was Scarlette’s default, but there was a coil of fear running through it now—her eyes didn’t settle on anything for more than a second, always flicking to the door, the torch, the ceiling.
Mama Celeste was next to her, skirts spread on the slime like a Sunday picnic in hell.
She didn’t look dead, exactly, but her face had gone slack and chalky, and her hands were folded gently in her lap.
Eyes closed, she seemed to be counting her breath, in and out.
No sign of a pulse, but then again, I’d seen her weirder.
I forced my legs to work, crossed to Scarlette, and crouched low. “You alright?”
She glared. “Do I look alright?”
I shrugged. “You look like hell, but I’m not judging.”
She started to laugh, but it came out as a snarl. “The magic trick got us all locked in the fuckin’ dungeon, Toolie. Congrats.”
Moab spun on his heel. “We’re not in the future anymore. That’s for goddamn sure.” He bared his teeth at the wall, then started pacing again.
I wanted to say something to settle him, but I couldn’t remember what brotherhood sounded like.
Instead, I sat next to Scarlette and tried to breathe through my nose, which only made things worse. The stench down here had weight; you could practically bite it.
Scarlette jerked her chin at Celeste. “She’s been out for a while.”
I leaned in, careful not to touch. “You sure she’s breathing?”
She scowled. “She’s breathing. Every time I check, she slaps my hand away.”
As if on cue, Celeste’s eyes flicked open. She took us in, one after the other, and then went right back to ignoring us, face smooth as a still pond. Not a trace of panic.
I cleared my throat. “Mama C. What the fuck happened?”
She smiled, small. “It worked.”
I stared at her, waiting for the punchline.
She rolled her neck, cracked her knuckles. “We made the jump. But time’s a messy old river, boys. Sometimes you don’t land on the bank you expected.”
Moab stalked over, hands flexing open and closed. “You could have told us the landing would be in a fucking oubliette.”
Celeste’s eyes glittered in the torchlight. “It was this, or nothing at all. You want to meet your destiny, sometimes you crawl through the mud to do it.”
Scarlette barked a bitter laugh. “Spare us the fortune cookie bullshit.” She’d adjusted just fine to her own time-travel from months ago. It gave me high hopes for Catherine.
A metallic echo clanged from down the corridor. Voices rose—men, maybe a dozen, speaking English, but not the kind you’d find in a classroom. I recognized some of the curses. Old curses. Irish and English mixed together. The tempo of the night sped up. We all felt it.
I tried the bars again, but they might as well have been welded to the bones of the earth. My fingers slipped on old rust.
Moab looked ready to break something. He pressed his forehead to the wall and just breathed, chest expanding and contracting like he was fighting a bear for space.
Scarlette watched him, a note of concern sneaking into her scowl. “He’s not built for cages,” she muttered.
I nodded. “None of us are.”
More shouts, closer this time, and then a key ring rattled through the hall. Someone was coming, torch bobbing in a restless fist.
Scarlette shot a look at Celeste. “You going to do anything, or just sit there like a Buddha?”
Celeste didn’t answer, but I saw her fingers move, tracing something on her palm. A shape, a sign, or maybe just an old habit.
The footsteps stopped at our cell. The man on the other side was built like Moab, but meaner, all scars and teeth. His eyes were small and close-set, and he looked at us the way a butcher looks at a side of beef.
He spoke. “Which one of you is the priest?”
We just stared at him.
He spat in the drain. “No matter. Tomorrow you all die.” He laughed, the kind of sound that promised follow-through, then shouldered his torch and moved on.
Moab slammed a fist into the bars, hard enough to rattle the frame. “Fuck!”
Scarlette tensed. “He’s right, isn’t he? We’re going to die here.”
Celeste looked at me, her eyes black as spit. “Only if you let them.”
Her certainty scared me more than the butcher outside.
I stared at the ceiling, watched the torch shadows crawl and writhe, and wondered if Catherine was anywhere near. If she was, I’d find her. Even if I had to drag my broken soul through every century of hell to do it.
***
The hall had gone quiet for at least an hour, which was how you knew real trouble was on the way.
The usual racket—the moaning, the shouts, the rattling of distant chains—shut off like someone cutting power to a haunted house. The silence grew a skin. I gripped the bars and watched torchlight crawl up the corridor wall, washing out every color but blood orange.
First came two guards in matching red uniforms, tall hats, and boots that shone even in this shithole.
They carried muskets at parade rest, but their faces said they'd use the bayonets first and reload later.
Between them strode a man who made the other two look like wind-up toys: upright, pressed uniform, hair clipped so tight the scalp shone, boots that clicked instead of thudded.
He looked like he'd never farted or sneezed without a signed order from God.
His eyes scanned the cell, then lingered on each of us in turn.
He fixed on Moab first—maybe because he took up the most air. Then Scarlette, then Celeste, and last, me. His gaze was cold and perfect. It measured us down to the marrow.
He stopped two feet from the bars. “State your names,” he barked.
Moab gave him nothing, arms folded, face set to stone.
Scarlette hesitated, then spat, “Sarah. Sarah Byrne.” I almost laughed—she had a fake name ready, even here.
Celeste smiled, sweet as sugar. “Marie. Marie Laveau.”
He didn’t blink. “And you?” he said, pinning me to the back wall with that stare.
My brain defaulted. “James,” I said, the name rolling out on instinct. “James O’Toole.”
He twitched. “I see.” He looked us over again, starting to circle the cell like he was casing a safe for weak points. “You claim to be travelers. But your clothes are…unusual. Your speech even more so.” He let the insult hang in the air, then snapped, “What are you?”
Scarlette rolled her eyes. “People. Just people.”
He snorted. “People do not appear in Her Majesty’s prison with no papers, no parish, and a tongue like a demon’s.”
Moab stepped forward, jaw flexed, fists tight. “We’re nobody to you. Let us go, and we disappear.”
The guards raised their guns. I could see the fear in their eyes. Moab smiled, slow and mean, and that just made them more scared.
The officer—must’ve been Hale, from the stories—turned his focus to me, zeroed in on my arms. The sleeves of my shirt had been rolled up, and the tattoos were impossible to miss. Black shamrock, chain links, and the MC patch. Out of place by three centuries.