"Don't I even get a last meal?" Francisco asked quietly.
Lucille sobbed in one corner and pleaded with a man named Nelson. "Don't kill him—please, Nelson—"
"Shut up!" Nelson backhanded her.
Francisco swung before he could think better. He ended up on the floor, doubled over and retching.
Janet Firelli ran to him, kneeling at his side to see how badly they'd injured him. She glared at Nelson while Francisco fought for sufficient breath to hush her.
"Why kill him?" The young woman's voice shattered on a sob. "He's no danger, not here . . ."
"Janet . . ." Francisco wheezed around the pain in his middle. "Don't . . ."
"Get him into that parka," Nelson snapped. "I'm not taking any chances. He might poison us all just for the fun of it."
Francisco didn't think he could gain his feet. Not without assistance. So he just glared up at Nelson from the floor and said around the blood in his mouth, "At least . . . let me make sure the others are healthy. Unless you want to risk losing someone else? Conditions here are bad. Real bad. I'm surprised they aren't all sick."
Nelson locked gazes with him, then grunted. "Sure, why not, doc? But make it fast."
Francisco nodded and tried to sit up. Janet helped him. He leaned heavily on her shoulder, feigning more pain and grogginess than he actually felt. Anything to gain time. . . . Not that he expected the cavalry to save him. Francisco doubted anything could save him.
Both Janet and Lucille were crying. Danny, Jr. met his gaze bravely. "They're going to kill my dad too, aren't they?"
Francisco pushed himself awkwardly to his knees and tried to ease the pain in his gut. Stall 'em, long as you can. "Not for a while, Danny. They still need him. Janet, can you give me a hand?" With her help, he tottered to his feet and wobbled across to the nearest army cot. "Let me take a look at you, okay?"
He took his time despite pointless threats from Nelson and performed very thorough physicals on each of the hostages. Lucille winced when he bathed her bruised cheek and dabbed alcohol and antibiotic cream on her split lip.
"How's Dan?" she quavered. Her eyes were far too bright. The circles under her eyes were far too dark. How long, subjectively, had they been here?
"He's holding on, Lucy. I wondered what was wrong. He told everyone you and Danny were spending the winter in Juneau."
"They haven't hurt him?"
He held her gaze. "No. He's lost some weight and I doubt he's been sleeping much, but he's fine. They need him, obviously. He's smart, Lucy. Hang on a little longer, okay?"
She nodded. "I'll be fine, really."
He managed a smile around the sudden lump in his throat.
Then he returned to Janet. As he put her through the exam, he murmured, "About Zac . . . Do what I told you, okay? Keep the incision clean and keep him quiet. Zac should heal quickly. Kids that age do."
"I'm scared," she whispered, eyes brimming. "I don't have any medical background at all. I'm a physics major, not a med student."
"You did fine in surgery. This will be easy potatoes, compared. And remember, if there are any complications"—he allowed his gaze to slide briefly toward Nelson—"you'll still have the surgical kit."
She caught her breath, then nodded. Hope flared for a moment in her eyes, then grief blotted it out. "I can't bear this! They can't just murder you!"
They not only could, they would. All too soon. And both of them knew it. He squeezed her hand. "Thanks, Janet," he said a little unsteadily.
He couldn't delay any longer. He'd already repeated a couple of things as it was. His hands shook as he stood up. Francisco drew a quick breath and turned to face Nelson—by far the hardest thing he'd ever done. Nelson's eyes were glacial.
"All right," Francisco snarled, "let's get this over with!"
Nelson and the man called Joey had already shrugged into parkas. Joey handed Francisco another, which he donned with fingers that shook so badly, he couldn't work the zipper. Danny muttered, "Here, let me."
"Sit down!"
He got the damned zipper closed. Danny flushed dark red and sat down, but he shoved his lower lip out and glared at Nelson with murder in his young eyes. For just an instant, he looked exactly like his father. Francisco drew a ragged breath and turned his back on the others. Bill held the door and flipped him an arrogant salute.
"So long, Major," he grinned. "Have a nice trip. I hear the skiing is great this time of year."
Francisco stumbled out onto icy ground. Nelson and Joey followed silently. The door slammed shut behind them. The cold was dry and bitter in his lungs. They marched him out across the snow field, away from the building. How far would they walk him? Out of range of the gunshot, maybe. Then again, maybe not. If the hostages heard him die, they'd be less likely to cause trouble in the future.
What was left of their future.
Francisco walked stiffly between his executioners. He wondered if dying would hurt much. He stumbled and was dragged upright again. Francisco shut his eyes, helpless in their grasp, and tried to focus his mind, tried to think of something—anything—he could do besides quake in his boots.
Maybe he could take one of his killers with him? Nelson was a hopeless bet, unless Francisco had a gun. Like many Latins, Francisco was a slim man and proud of it, especially at forty. Nelson must've been three times his mass. Tackling him would have been tantamount to tackling a city bus.
Joey, on the other hand . . .
Joey was taller than he was, but not by much. And he wasn't all that much heavier than Francisco. And Joey had a gun that ought to drop even Nelson in his tracks, if Francisco could just get his hands on it. He narrowed his eyes against the cold and slowed his pace slightly. Nelson didn't notice. Joey closed the distance and grabbed his arm to hurry him along.
Francisco drew a quick breath, muttered a heartfelt, "Hail Mary . . ."
And spun around. He planted a foot in Joey's stomach and an elbow in his face. Joey yelled and staggered off balance. Francisco lunged for the pistol at his waist. He got gloved hands on it, yanked it loose, managed to work the action—
Nelson hit him from behind. He crashed into Joey. Everybody went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Somebody punched his ribs hard, but the heavy parka absorbed most of the damage. He tried to roll free of an octopuslike embrace and actually managed to squeeze off three wild shots. Then Joey got an arm around his windpipe. Nelson came in from the side. Someone let fly a kick that paralyzed Francisco's whole left arm. While he was gasping, Joey wrestled the pistol away from nerveless fingers.
Nelson snatched him up by the front of the parka and jerked back the hood. Freezing air hit him in the face, shocking him out of stupor. He groaned, struggled feebly. Nelson seized a fistful of Francisco's hair, then shoved his head down until his chin was jammed against his breastbone. Joey grabbed his arms from behind and held him pinioned.
No . . .
An icy gun muzzle jabbed the base of his skull. Francisco squeezed shut his eyes—and waited for the bullet to rip through his brain.
What on earth do I do about Charlie and Lucania?
Finding them was imperative. But how? The image of the department-store conundrum flashed into her mind again. Herculaneum was one big "department store." And Charlie and his little girl were awfully small targets.
In fact, there was only one logical place Sibyl could think to look. She shivered, despite the sticky, close heat of the rumbling night. He might stake out Bericus' townhouse, looking for her. If either of them were caught . . .
Sibyl headed resolutely for the House of the Stags. She was several blocks southeast of it, which took her through streets unexcavated in her own time. Sibyl was so preoccupied with pain, exhaustion, and fear, she scarcely noticed details that once would have consumed her entire attention. Gotta find Charlie and Lucania, was the only thing running through her mind. Gotta find them.
The adrenaline rush of the fight with Tony gradually wore off. Pain began to catch up. She hurt. As her energy seeped away and pain crept more and more crushingly into her movements, visions of ripping out Bericus' guts out with bare nails and teeth, of gouging Tony's eyes with her thumbs, of shooting both of them multiple times—with nonfatal shots for the first fourteen or fifteen rounds she dumped into them—plagued her.
Those visions frightened Sibyl at one level.
At another level entirely, she felt something soft and liberal and naïve die within her. And found she didn't mourn its passing.
Nobody raped Sibyl Johnson and got away with it.
It was a hard, bitter lesson, but she understood at last why Granny Johnson had proudly displayed a needlepoint sampler which read, "A woman with a gun is nobody's victim."
Sibyl took a deep breath and let it out silently.
Hating Bericus and Tony Bartlett wouldn't help her find Charlie and Lucania. Sibyl kept doggedly on toward the House of the Stags and pressed flat against buildings or recessed doorways any time she saw groups of men with torches or lanterns. Terror of recapture left her trembling in the darkness long after such groups passed by. Her progress was excruciatingly slow. Once Bericus himself stormed past her hiding place, several of his slaves trailing behind him like the wind-tossed tail of a kite caught in a storm.
She huddled in the recessed niche where she'd taken refuge for long minutes, until her heart stopped its triphammer lurching. Eventually, she found the courage to set out again. Sibyl finally gained a vantage point that let her observe the entrance to Bericus' townhouse. Looks clear and quiet. . . .
She carefully searched each of the streets adjacent to the house—there were only two, since one side abutted the House of the Mosaic Atrium and the fourth side was an open sun terrace—but found no trace of Charlie, his daughter, or his horse. She returned to a vantage point from which she could watch the entrance and prayed Bericus didn't spot her.
At least an hour later, the door opened. Several of Bericus' slaves emerged furtively. Their low voices carried above the rumble of the volcano.
"I still say this is madness!"
"That mountain isn't? I'll risk Bericus, but not that fiery mountain!"
"Well, even if the mountain don't get him, maybe the Emperor will! I tell you, they're on to him! Why else would a soldier be after him? Him and that sibyl he bought? You heard what his carriage driver said. She warned him this morning and he took her anyway and now Vesuvius is on fire and the Imperial Army's sent a centurion after him! Just watch and see if I stick around another night!"
Sibyl watched them leave and chewed her thumbnail ragged. Charlie had come and gone. Had discovered she was missing and ridden on, searching elsewhere. But where? Again, logic dictated only one possible destination: the beach. He would know they had to get away—and that the sea offered the only real escape left them. She groaned and clenched her hands together.
She couldn't think of a likelier destination. With or without her, he had to get out of the city. And they were running out of time. It had taken what felt like hours to maneuver her way from the waterfront through town to this vantage point.
And now she had to go back. Had to face those appalling breakers again. So tired she could scarcely make her legs hold her weight, Sibyl hauled herself back to her feet. Did she dare the sea stairs? They looked dark, safe. . . . She decided to risk it a second time, since that was the closest way to the beach. Sibyl found the entrance and groped her way downward in utter blackness.
By the time she fled down the steps into the breakers, the night was well advanced. A quick glance at Vesuvius left her chilled. Gouts of flame tore upwards. Funnel-shaped coils of fire and glowing ash which cooled into darkness on their way up were eventually lost in the stratosphere-climbing blackness. Up to twelve miles above Vesuvius' crater, sheets and curtains of fire tore through the sky, caught by cross winds at various elevations. That fire shivered and licked southeastward with every gust of high-altitude wind, toward Pompeii and Stabiae.
Sibyl couldn't be certain, but felt at a primal level she might have only minutes left in which to activate the recall gadget. Tony warned me I'd need fifteen minutes. Do I have fifteen minutes left? She found shelter in the dark lip of a boat chamber. Far out toward the horizon, nearly invisible between wave crests, Sibyl saw the winking light of lanterns as someone made a last-minute dash for safety. She didn't have the courage to hope that someone might include Charlie Flynn and his beautiful little girl.
She turned away from the crashing stretch of earthquake-ravaged breakers and swore softly. Then, tears stinging her eyes, she dug into the pouch at her waist. The reassuring glow of the LED display startled her for a moment. She'd half forgotten modern niceties during the past few days. Sibyl paused briefly. Was that all it had been? A little less than a week, subjectively? She shook her head. A week in the life of a time traveler. . . .
She wasn't entirely certain of the wisdom of activating the recall button this close to town, but a sense of extreme urgency had crept across her. That urgency prevented her from seeking a quieter spot outside town. The hole in time was undoubtedly going to be spectacular, if what she'd seen on a back road in Florida were anything to judge by. There were still far too many people up and about for her to feel comfortable about opening the portal here. But when the column of ash and gas belching out of Vesuvius began to collapse, it would race down the slopes as a fiery avalanche and separate into two equally lethal phases.
Not as though there would be witnesses to the second phase. No one living in Herculaneum would need to worry about the slow-moving pyroclastic flow of molten pumice and mud which would eventually engulf the city and bury it beneath sixty feet of solid rock. They'd be long dead from the fiery surge of two-hundred-degree gas, ash, and pumice which would rip through the city at speeds of anywhere from one hundred sixty to four hundred eighty miles per hour.
Even at its slowest speed, the surge that killed Herculaneum would reach them in a fraction more than four minutes after it blasted its way clear of Vesuvius' crater.
And I need fifteen minutes. . . .
Sibyl stepped out of her shelter and waded cautiously into the wild breakers. She cast a final look at the virulent red glow of Vesuvius' eye—
The shape of the eruption cloud had changed. Its color shifted wildly, shot through with whitish-yellow masses, punctuated by tornado shapes and flaring sheets of withering orange and red.
"Forgive me, Charlie."
She mashed the recall button.
Nothing happened.
Not that she was certain what to expect.
The glow from the LED display remained unchanged. Uneasily she looked again toward Vesuvius, then back at the display screen. Then blinked. And held her breath.
The numbers were changing.
Sibyl watched, transfixed. What, exactly, did those numbers mean? Absently, she rubbed the hairs on her arm, then paused to frown. Every hair stood erect, like winter-dry fur on a cat, shedding static electric sparks every time it's petted.
The air smelled like lightning.
Deeply uneasy, Sibyl backed farther into the arched boat chamber. From that refuge she watched in silent awe as a time storm brewed above the narrow beach at Herculaneum. Seemingly nothing more untoward than an extension of the black hell boiling out of the volcano, thick black clouds formed out of nowhere and clustered low above the furious sea. Lightning flashed from cloud to cloud.
The lightning was pink.
Despite possible dangers, Sibyl felt herself drawn out into the open to watch the display. She stood her ground against the sea and stared. Massive, cloud-splitting bolts stabbed from the time storm into the roaring volcanic eruption. The air began to tremble as violently as the ground.
A cracking bolt blasted into wave-churned sand not five feet from Sibyl. She jumped backwards even before she screamed. Slowly, through the numbing aftershock of thunder, it occurred to Sibyl that in order to get through the time doorway, she would have to run a gauntlet of that lightning. Sibyl slid to her haunches in the boat shelter. Oh, God, I have to go through that. . . .
Lingering terror of thunderstorms, of lightning and murderous wind, held her immobile inside the boat chamber. She hunched her shoulders and watched, shell-shocked, as the night grew wilder. Memory—traitorous and cruel—returned her to the black night of her childhood when the tornado had ripped through their house, spewing lightning and death in its path.
Screams from very close by roused her from near-stupor. Vesuvius . . . New terror, more shockingly immediate, drove her to her feet. Sibyl stumbled out onto the beach, cringing from the lightning which now crashed all around.
Vesuvius had gone mad.
Fire crawled down its slopes. Great, surging waves of flame blasted upward and outward, not in a ground-hugging lava flow, but in a boiling, seething mass a half-mile high. She was unable to tear her gaze from it. It split into distinct waves as lighter elements separated from heavier components, gas from ash, ash from pumice, pumice from the ground-hugging pyroclastic flow . . .
All of it spilled down the mountainside. The first rolling wave blasted halfway down. Then the leading edge dissipated on the wind. But the weight and mass of the next surge was right behind it. Sibyl caught her breath in a sob that hurt her whole body. The second wave roared closer still, headed on a crash course for Herculaneum.
First surge at midnight, fourth an hour after that—it'll kill Pompeii—fifth surge 7:00 a.m., last surge 8:30, and it'll blast all the way to Misenum. . . .
Sibyl wouldn't have to worry about surges two through seven. Number one was going to kill her. Terror-stricken people fled right at her. The first refugees to reach her were the members of a wealthy family. They carried lanterns which swung insanely as they ran. The woman screamed, demanded to be taken away. Children cried or—worse—clung to their parents' hands and clothes, wrapped in terror too deep for expression. More refugees arrived. Some led hard-to-manage horses. People spread out along the seawall, sobbing frantically for boats.
Someone actually managed to launch one. A riot ensued as people swamped it, trying to get aboard.
Four minutes. How much time's gone? How much is left? WHERE'S THE DAMNED TIME PORTAL?
A heavy man slammed into, then past her. Sibyl stumbled badly. Curses scalded her ears. No boat in the chamber. More people crowded onto the beach. Lightning blazed. White faces lit with a hellish pink glow. The panicked crowd shoved into the boat chamber. Sibyl was pressed toward the rear by a throng that would soon be too thick to push past.
Oh, shit. . . .
Sibyl kicked and shoved. When people refused to give ground and let her past, she stabbed blindly with her dirk. Cries of pain sickened her. "Let me out! Let me through!"
Sibyl shoved until she stumbled onto open beach again. The sea sucked back from the seawall, crashed forward. She staggered into the wall, half dazed by the weight of water. How many minutes had passed? She glanced up at the mountain—and froze.
The surge was enormous. It was halfway to the city already. She whirled around to stare wildly, but the blinding white doorway in time was nowhere to be seen. For one agonizing moment, Sibyl was paralyzed by fear more intense than anything she had ever felt.
Then, surrounded by mad lightning and screaming people, an eerie calm settled over her. Panic-stricken cries, crashing thunder, the roar of the volcanic surge . . . All of it faded into near silence. It was hopeless. The blast alone would knock her off her feet, scour the skin from her body with blistering heat. But it was all she could do. And it beat running in frantic circles waiting to die.
Sibyl began to hyperventilate.
Who knew? Maybe she could hold her breath long enough to crawl through and spend a year or so in a burn unit somewhere, growing new skin. . . .
Then, shockingly, hands closed around her throat. She moved blindly, slashed out at her attacker. Too tall for a Roman . . . Lightning blazed. She found herself staring into Tony Bartlett's mad eyes. His face was waxy white, his features contorted. He was shouting at her, but she couldn't hear him. Sibyl broke his hold and windmilled backwards. She sucked down air. He lunged again. Sibyl stumbled away and was knocked down by a crashing wave.
She coughed salt water. Tried to get away from crushing hands. Why hadn't he died? Then an immense black shape reared up out of the night. A horse . . .
"CHARLIE!"
No familiar voice answered that primal scream. The horse stood on its hind legs, fighting a grip on its trailing lead rope. The man holding that rope wasn't Charlie Flynn. Then Tony Bartlett slammed into whoever it was and seized the rope himself. The horse's hooves smashed into the surf within inches of Sibyl's head. She lost sight of Tony as she scrambled to her feet. Another glare of lightning showed Tony astride the horse, clutching his shoulder and the horse's mane.
Then it happened.
Between them, a brilliant crack of white light opened out of thin air. Oh, God, please, it's too late, it won't open fast enough . . . Peripheral vision showed her a looming wall of fire bearing down on them. She could hear the roar as the fiery avalanche swept through the dying town. Could smell the brimstone stench as death blasted closer . . .
With agonizing slowness the sliver of white light widened. Became a bar. A window. Screams and sobs for divine help rose in a shriek behind her. A frantic look over her shoulder revealed a half-mile high tsunami of fire crashing down on her. Glowing white streaks and seething balls of incandescence flashed through it.
The cresting mass swirled orange and red where it was cooler. In places it was shot through with black smoke and pumice. It engulfed buildings, whole city blocks, sweeping down through the town at tornado speeds. Where the white streaks and glowing masses touched buildings, they ignited. People ran screaming toward the seawall in front of it, were swallowed alive. . . .
The leading edge was less than a block away and coming like a derailed freight train. The time portal wasn't quite as wide as a closet doorway. Just wide enough if she didn't misjudge.
Sibyl drew a frantic breath of air—
—and launched herself straight into the still-widening glare. Three feet away, Tony Bartlett kicked the horse after her. As she fell forward into the portal, Sibyl twisted, disoriented and lost. She caught a final, horrifying glimpse of Herculaneum. That glimpse burned into her mind with the force of nightmare: a woman with hideous buck teeth, dressed as a whore in a short tunica, stood frozen atop the seawall. The prostitute was pointing directly at the portal, transfixed, her form lit insanely by the light pouring out of the time doorway. Her mouth worked, shaping words . . .
Venus and Mars, help us—
The fiery avalanche caught her up and flung her to the beach.
I've seen her bones, the buck-toothed woman thrown from the seawall, I've seen her bones. . . .
Then brilliant white light blotted out everything.
Time crawled to a meaningless standstill. Sibyl twisted helplessly without reference points. She was spinning into nowhere. . . . Some unknown distance after her initial fall into the light, she felt a concussion along the length of her body. Something heavy had crashed through with her.
Tony and the horse.
She couldn't see them, couldn't hear anything. The surge was right behind her, but she couldn't see it, either. When I drop out the other side, it'll be right on top of me. If she crawled straight forward, it would blast through and kill her. Gotta get off to the side or maybe get behind it . . .
Could she get behind it?
The force of landing jarred her so deeply she couldn't breathe. Sibyl lurched to her knees anyway, flung herself sideways on a perpendicular line away from the open portal. A gagging stench and lethal heat blasted loose behind her. The volcanic surge blew out through the time hole. The portal widened like a dilating camera shutter. Sibyl lunged forward, rolled away from the heat, toward the back side of the rip in reality—
She landed in clear, sweet air the temperature of an industrial-grade freezer. Sibyl gulped reflexively. For an awful moment, she couldn't distinguish the burning of knife-cold air in her lungs from the burning of super-heated volcanic gasses.
Then she collapsed, simply breathing in and out.
She was barely cognizant that she lay belly down on a hard-packed surface of snow and ice.