Chapter 29
All the blood drains from my face, my extremities. A wave of faintness sweeps over me, and I instinctively put out a hand to steady myself against Adrian. His sudden gasp signals he’s spotted my name amidst the paragraphs as well.
“What the hell?” he whispers.
Lovejoy shuts the book, places it in her lap, and folds her hands over it. “I don’t know, but I assume this is why you wanted it, Mr. Caine?”
I shake my head. “How can this be happening? My name…is it some bizarre coincidence? Some distant ancestor of mine?”
Lovejoy shrugs. “Are you a descendant of sorcerers?”
“No,” I say automatically, then catch myself. “I don’t think? How would I know?”
“Family records, I imagine.” She watches me curiously. “If there are none, you’d have to go looking, probably in Europe if you can trace your descent that far back.”
“I don’t have time for that!”
“Likely not,” she agrees.
Adrian rubs at his eyes, then leans forward. “We need to borrow the book, take it to someone who can translate it.”
“Do you, now?” Her voice takes on a cold edge.
“Yes,” Adrian says firmly. “We’ll take excellent care of it, but we have to find out why Sterling, and by extension the Timekeeper cult, wanted it so badly. Clearly Giuliani became interested in the concept of cyclical time, since you said she kept sketching Aion.”
“And she was showing the stars in the current configuration in regard to the zodiac.” My brain sputters back to life. “Some repeating cycle that happened in her time, and now is happening again?”
Adrian sits up straight. “Damn. I think you might be on to something.” He turns to Lovejoy. “So, can we borrow the book?”
“No.”
Both of us gape at her. The smoke from her cigarette coils lazily around her neck and one arm, like a pet. “But…we need it,” I flounder.
“If you can find a competent translator, by all means send them here and I’ll show them the book.
” She gives me a sharp look. “You tried to get it from me before, then resorted to sending violent men to take it when I refused. I believe you when you say you can’t remember, but whatever you wanted this book for, I doubt it was to a good end.
So, no, I’m not going to simply hand it over to you because you asked more nicely this time. ”
Adrian smooths his expression and puts on a smile. “Miss Lovejoy—”
“I said no.” Her voice is cool, implacable. She rises to her feet, and we hurriedly do the same. “Now, I’ve given you two enough of my time.”
We have no choice but to walk ahead of her to the front door. Adrian tries again once we’re on the stoop, but she cuts him off mid-word by shutting the door. The decisive click of the lock punctuates our dismissal.
We stare at one another in silence, then make for the sidewalk, passing the sentinel statues on the way out. I’m reminded again of the driftwood sculptures, and it suddenly occurs to me it’s because the same sense of being watched hangs around them.
“What now?” I ask unhappily.
Adrian ponders for a long moment…then sighs. “Let’s talk about it over coffee.”
We find a diner not far away and slide into one of the tiny booths. A tired-looking waitress brings us two steaming cups of coffee, then whisks back behind the counter to tend to the customers there. The warmth of the mug is soothing against my fingertips.
“Something occurs to me.” I stir sugar into the coffee, spoon rattling against the ceramic cup. “Bianca Giuliani had an ordinary life, but left it behind when she had a nervous breakdown.”
“Then tried to go home again, only to find her old life inaccessible.” Adrian drums his fingers on the tabletop. “The same might be said of you.”
“I noticed. Could the Timekeeper cult have been around so long ago? Have they been, I don’t know, drugging victims, using them for their own purposes, then abandoning them when they return to normal?”
“It’s as plausible as anything else.” He considers for a long moment. “Maybe your distant ancestors had some involvement in it?”
“That would explain why my name is there, but…James was the one originally meant to go to Hart’s Leap. They used me, but I wasn’t who they really wanted.”
“The book would tell us more.” Adrian scowls at his coffee.
“Cambridge isn’t far from here, I’m sure someone there can translate it for us.
But getting a stranger to drop everything and come to Salem in the next few days seems unlikely at best. And we don’t have time to wait around, not with people trying to murder us. ”
“True.” We sip our coffee in silence for a few minutes, both of us thinking hard.
At last, I say, “Giuliani’s breakdown keeps niggling at me.
Her husband thought she’d gone insane. James probably thought the same about me.
Then there was the madman in the marsh, and all of the people ending up in asylums from drinking the tainted booze. ”
“I think it’s safe to assume Chrono-Flav—Chrysalis—is the added impurity causing them to become semi-catatonic,” Adrian says.
“Agreed, but my point is there seems to be a lot of people losing their grip on sanity when the Timekeepers are around.”
Adrian looks at me questioningly. “You want to interview some of the asylum patients? Or consult a psychiatrist?”
“Why not? You mentioned before one might be able to help me regain my memories.” I spread my hands apart helplessly. “It can’t hurt, can it?”
“I hope not.” Adrian sighs. “The man from the marsh was taken to Danvers. I can’t remember his name, but when I call in to the office I’m sure someone there can look it up for me.”
I finish my coffee and put down the mug. “Danvers isn’t that far from here.”
“Too bad we don’t have my car anymore,” Adrian says wistfully. “I do still think we need to get the book…but if we can’t wait for a translator to carve out time to travel here, we’d have to steal it—temporarily, of course.”
I consider his words, then recall the strange movements of smoke from Lovejoy’s cigarette and her casual dismissal of the fate of the men I’d apparently sent to rob her. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
He sighs. “You’re probably right. We’ll keep it in mind in case we get desperate, but for now going to Danvers seems the smartest move. If a psychiatrist there can recover your memories, it would go a long way to helping us find the Key.”
The Key of Mithras. Sometimes, I forget that’s Adrian’s ultimate reason for helping me. That he’s subjecting himself to this insanity of cults and magic and everything else simply because they have something his employer is paying him to retrieve.
“I assume most of your cases aren’t quite so exciting as this one,” I say ruefully. “Unless the insurance industry is far different than I’ve been led to believe.”
“I wouldn’t call it boring, but the sorts of cases I work almost never involve murder.
Unlike those in the life insurance division.
” He finishes his coffee and puts the empty cup beside mine.
“Usually, it’s just a matter of asking the right questions or surveilling a suspected fraudster.
I frequently pretend to be in the employ of a rich, White art collector looking to make a quiet purchase, as you saw when we met. ”
“Does it ever get dangerous?”
“Generally, no. This sort of crime almost never involves overt violence. Even thefts made at gunpoint tend to end with the victims tied up and scared, but otherwise unharmed.” He checks his watch. “We should send a telegram ahead to the asylum, so they’ll be expecting us.”
“What are we going to tell them?”
“The truth, or as much as is needed.”
I twist my napkin between my fingers, my belly sinking. “When they hear about my memory loss, my actions, they may want to…keep me.”
Adrian reaches across the table and puts his hand on mine, stilling my nervous movements. I look up and find his warm eyes fixed on me. “I won’t let them.”
“What if it’s where I belong, though?” I don’t want to be locked away, but…
“I acted completely out of character for over a year. I ordered some sort of-of goons to steal the Lettere Segrete from Miss Lovejoy, I probably arranged for Mr. Pearce to be killed—or did it myself. I joined a cult, for heaven’s sake!
Then I lost all memory of it and reverted back to my normal self.
” My shoulders slump. “Maybe I should be confined.”
Adrian’s fingers tighten convulsively on mine, but his voice remains calm. “If you feel treatment is the best course of action for you, then I’ll support your decision. Let’s see what we find out first, though.”
I’m desperately glad I’m not going through this alone. Without Adrian, I would have just stumbled back to my apartment in a mix of confusion, panic, and despair. Or, more likely, would have been assassinated long before I reached New York again.
I nod, and Adrian lets go of my hand. “Let me pay the check, and we’ll go to the telegraph office.”