Once Every Never (14 page)

“Do I have something in my teeth?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re staring.”

“Oh! … No … just thinking.”

“Right.” Milo’s expression shifted to something between subtle amusement and shyness and he ran a thumb along the line of his bottom lip.

Clare looked away, feeling her cheeks redden again. “I mean … what you said about the shield makes sense, but there was other smaller stuff laid out in the room, too. Why go to all the trouble for just one piece of hardware when you can go full-on kid-in-a-candy-store?”

“I think he took the torc for the prestige factor.” Al wolfed down her last bite of fish. “Art thieves are weird. They can crack into a vault full of priceless stuff and walk back out again with nothing because it wasn’t quite the
right
stuff. I’ve heard my mom tell stories like that of gallery break-ins.”

“Your mom hangs out with a whole lotta nutjobs,” Milo said as he wadded the now-empty newspaper cone into a ball and lobbed it into a wastebasket. Then he stood, walked over to his workstation, and flung himself into the chair behind his computer terminal.

Al shrugged. “Yeah, Mumsy’s a cracker-magnet. No argument. Nevertheless, my point stands. And let’s face it—the torc was the absolute star of the Ancient Britain collection. It was about to get its own display case.”

“Kind of makes it seem like the thief was thumbing his nose at the museum,” Clare reasoned.

“Sure does.” Al nodded. “So this Morholt guy Maggie was talking about. You’ve
never
heard his name before?”

“Nope.”

“Because the way the Perfesser was talking about him …”

“I know,” Clare agreed. She’d heard it too: both
what
Maggie had said about the guy and the
way
she’d said it. “I gotta say, I’m intrigued. Also? Slightly disturbed.”

“Yeah.”

“Stuart Morholt,” Milo piped up suddenly, gesturing at his computer screen. “Arch-Druid of the Order of the Free Peoples of Prydein. Scholar, Sage, Sword of Righteous Truth.”

“Pardon?” Al turned to him.

“Also—according to another, less public-relations-driven website—Criminal, Crazy, Con-artist Extraordinaire.”

“What’s Prydein?” Clare asked.

“A really old name for Britain. Pre–Roman invasion.”

“Oh.”

“What site are you on, Mi?” Al squeezed in behind him, peering over his shoulder.

“The mighty Wikipedia led me to these two in particular.” He pointed with one hand and mouse-clicked with the other. “The first one is the official site of the aforementioned Free Peoples—looks like a bunch of weekend LARPers to me—and this one: something called ‘
wacko-whackers.com
.’ It’s like a debunker kind of site. They seem to have vastly differing opinions on your man Morholt.”

“Wait, what’s a LARPer?” Clare asked.

Al and Milo exchanged an indulgent glance.

“Live Action Role Player,” Al said with only a touch of condescension in her voice.

“Ah.”

“Weird …” Milo murmured. “According to both these web-sites, Stuart Morholt is definitely dead.”

“Not if he’s stealing stuff from the museum, he’s not,” Clare snorted.

“Dr. Jenkins said he was dead, too,” Al said.

“Yeah,” Clare nodded, thinking back over the conversation. “But Maggie sure didn’t agree with her on that point. And there was something else they were talking about that just sounded weird … about a trip to the Midlands with Morholt when they were all students and something terrible happening. Something Maggie said she’d never forget.”

“Well …” Milo pointed at the screen. The three of them stared at the information, mesmerized. “It says right here that Stuart Morholt, ‘a known fugitive wanted for various acts of theft and destruction of property,’ was killed in a fire. That was almost five years ago.”

“So … what the hell?”

“What the hell, indeed,” said a voice from over Clare’s shoulder—right before she felt the chill of cold metal pressing against the base of her skull … and heard a noise she’d only ever heard on television or in the movies.

The unmistakable
chck-chck
sound of someone cocking the hammer of a gun.

11

M
ilo swallowed nervously.

Al stifled a gasp.

And Clare suddenly forgot how to breathe.

“What … the hell … indeed,” the voice repeated with languid amusement. The voice was male, older, dulcet, with an upper-class Oxford-ish accent. And, Clare hoped, the product of her hyperactive imagination. Still, she thought she should check.

“Al, Milo …” Clare asked quietly, “is there a guy with a gun standing behind me?”

Milo’s jaw tightened and he nodded. Al, wide-eyed, just said, “Uh-huh …”

It wasn’t the response Clare had been looking for.

The man chuckled. “What your inarticulate little friends mean is ‘Yes, in fact, there is an impeccably stylish gentleman standing directly behind you, holding a vintage, silenced Walther PPK just below your ear—and yes, before anyone asks, that
is
the same gun used by the Connery-era James Bond—and it is quite capable of making mincemeat of your pretty little brainpan.’ They might also add, if they were very clever, that this gentleman strongly warns you against pulling any teenage
‘girl power’
bravado crap and instead suggests you do exactly what he says in order to avoid an untimely and—it’s safe to imagine—sloppy demise.”

Clare swallowed the knee-jerk sarcastic retort that was on the tip of her tongue and asked, politely, “Could I at least ask what you want from us? Uh, please?”

“I happen to think you could be a very useful little creature, my dear,” he replied. “A girl who can disappear into thin air would, to my way of thinking, be a marvellous help to me in my … pursuits.”

Clare went ice-cold from the inside out. “I’m not really looking for work.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Too bad. Work just found you.” His tone slipped effortlessly from convivial to
don’t-mess-with-me
and back again. “I find myself very much intrigued with your disappearing act.”

“What if I say that I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“Having observed your little magic trick firsthand I’d say you were lying. Of course, initially I wasn’t sure if I’d really seen it or not. But then I checked the museum security recordings after I’d absconded with them and it seemed my eyes did
not
tell a lie. Now, how’s about you do me the same courtesy?”

Clare remained silent.

“Tell me about the vanishing act, my dear.” The pressure eased behind Clare’s ear, and from the corner of her eye she saw the barrel of the gun swing in the direction of Al and Milo, who now stood paralyzed in the middle of the room. “Or I will shoot your friends where they stand.”

“No—wait!” Clare yelped.

“Yes?”

There was a sheen of perspiration on Milo’s brow. Al had gone a shade of whitish grey and looked as if she might pass out.

“I’ll tell you,” Clare said quietly. “I’ll tell you everything.”

She heard the sound of one of the tall stools over by a work-table scraping along the floor and sensed the man behind her settling himself to sit on it. Clare turned around slowly and got her first good look at him. His face was tanned and chiselled, handsome in a severe kind of way under a thatch of dark hair only just beginning to silver at the temples. Mid-forties, Clare figured. About the same age as Maggie …

Clare had a sudden flash of insight. She didn’t care what the internet said and she trusted Maggie’s instincts. She knew who this was. Stuart Morholt. Self-professed Lord High Muck-a-Muck Druid. And suddenly she understood how he knew what she could do. He had
seen
her vanish. He looked much less dorky without the cheesy blond moustache and wig under the guard hat, but it was definitely the same guy who’d been standing guard in the museum.

“Well. If it isn’t Officer Friendly,” she murmured.

“Beg pardon?” He raised one charcoal-coloured eyebrow.

She had to give him credit for not giving away the game back in the restoration room. Then again, since he’d been there to steal the torc, staying cool had been his only option.

She cleared her throat nervously. “Mr. Morholt, I presume?” He looked mildly surprised that she’d deduced his identity without prompting, but all he said was, “In the flesh. And not nearly as dead as some would like to think.” He nodded graciously toward Milo’s computer screen. “But I do thank you for your interest in my present state of well-being. Now. On to matters of more import.” He eyed Clare keenly, his gaze minutely appraising. “Tell me your story, Clarinet Reid.”

He knew her name. Her full, stupid name. And he’d called her by it. Seeing as how he had a gun, she let it slide, this once. But she wondered just exactly how well Stuart Morholt really knew her aunt Magda.

He was still staring at her, unblinking. “Tell me how you disappear.”

“I
don’t
disappear.”

Stuart Morholt sighed impatiently and swung the pistol toward Al again, who whimpered.

“No! I mean, I—I don’t
just
go invisible!” Clare stammered. She felt tears of frustration welling up behind her eyes. “Jeezus. I’m gonna tell you what really happens and you’re not gonna believe any of it. Then you’ll shoot us and we’ll die and this sucks!”

“Try me.” The self-professed Druid’s voice was surprisingly gentle. Inquisitive.

Clare blinked hard, stubbornly willing back the waterworks.

“Trust me on this one, Miss Reid,” Morholt continued. “You’ll have an easier time convincing me than you would your auntie Magda.” He laid the gun down in his lap and took his finger off the trigger.

Clare found it marginally easier to talk without the flat black eye of the gun barrel staring at her. “I don’t just disappear,” she said again, her voice hoarse, almost a whisper. “I … go elsewhere. Else
when
, really. I go back. In time.”

“Back?” Morholt’s voice was carefully neutral. “Back in
time
, you say?”

“It happened for the first time with the Battersea Shield in the museum. That’s what you saw on the security tapes. I just touched it and, uh …”

“Zot,” Al murmured.

Morholt frowned. “Zot?”

“Yeah,” Al said nervously. “We haven’t really come up with a scientific term for it yet.”

“Yes we have!” Clare protested. “I thought we were going to call it ‘shimmering.’”

“That’s not really scientific,” Al said obstinately. “Oh—and ‘zot’ is?”

“Ladies …” Morholt pinched the bridge of his nose as if he felt a sudden headache coming on.

“I just think ‘shimmer’ sounds more fantasy than sci-fi—”

“And didn’t we already decide that this thing I do is
not
science-based?”

“Ladies …”

“Yeah, but—”

“Look. It’s my thing. Milo even agrees that—”

“Ladies!” Morholt slammed the gun onto the tabletop and the girls jumped.
“Please.”

Clare swallowed apprehensively as the gun swung back up toward her. After a tense moment, Morholt waved it in a motion that indicated she should continue with her story.

“Right. Um. I touched the shield and, well … suddenly, there I was—standing on a riverbank in the dark and right in front of me were these guys wearing cloaks, and one of them was holding up a shield—”

“The Battersea Shield? Was it the same one?” Morholt leaned forward.

“Maybe. I’m not sure …” Clare’s spine tingled and her hands went cold at the memory. Of course it had been the same shield. She’d been sure of it. Pretty sure. She just wasn’t going to tell Morholt that. “And then I came back. The first time was only a few seconds.”

“And the second time? I saw it on the tape. With the Snettisham Torc. You touched the torc and you disappeared—you went back—a second time.” Morholt leaned forward again. “Did you see anyone? Were there people that time?”

“Yeah, there were people,” Clare snorted. “I only saw Boudicca. How’s
that
for people?” Out of the corner of her eye she caught Al giving her a warning look. But Clare was feeling a little reckless. And angry. She didn’t like bullies and Stuart Morholt was exactly that. A bully with a gun …

“Boudicca.” Morholt breathed the name like a sacred word in a prayer. “Did
she
… is the Great Torc
hers
? Is that who it belonged to?”

Over Morholt’s shoulder Clare saw Milo’s expression turn cautionary too, and decided that a bit of backpedalling might be in order.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t see it.”

Morholt raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Clare crossed her arms over her chest and stared defiantly. “I
didn’t
. It’s not like I was taking
notes
, y’know. There was a
lot
to look at!”

Morholt stared back, unblinking, for a long moment. Then he seemed to come to a decision. He reached over and plucked Comorra’s brooch from the table. Clare held her breath, half expecting him to disappear just as she had—he
was
, supposedly, a Druid—but nothing happened. He frowned at the ornament, perhaps having expected the same thing himself.

“All right,” he said finally. “Perhaps, Miss Reid, you’ll pay better attention if you have a bit of incentive. Would the knowledge that your friends’ lives depend on the quality of your observations improve them somewhat?” With the flick of his thumb, Morholt flipped the brooch through the air like a coin in Clare’s direction. She staggered backward, almost falling over a computer service cart, but still couldn’t stop herself as her right hand instinctively reached out and caught Comorra’s brooch. Her other hand came down on a laptop sitting on the cart, which exploded in a miniature fireworks burst of electrical disruption. Amid a shower of sparks and the smell of burning circuitry, the Ordnance Survey office—and the world outside its windows—winked out once more.