The Loved and the Lost (43 page)

“Mistress, please don't be frightened,” Shamira said to the Signora.

“Yeah. Everything's going to be just zippy,” Lincoln added, and he even smiled at Ugilino and Father Lurenzano. “Just zippy.”

Lurenzano puffed out his chest, now one with special information about Heaven. “What must I do, Eminence?” the priest asked the cardinal.

Hansum as Cardinal Frey smiled. The plan was working. “Why, whatever the angel tells you, good priest,” and he looked to Pan as the saint.“

Help the orphans,” Pan pronounced. “They need herbs from Signora Baroni's. Go with them. Protect them. And rush to the palace and get a physician.” Pan put one of his hands to his temple, like he was being psychic. “The last one is making ready to flee the city.”

“I am most happy to serve,” Father Lurenzano said, bowing obsequiously.

Ugilino was squinting at the Cardinal's gown again, staring at the brocaded eye he had seen wink. The eye was now just embroidered thread, but he felt the smile below was broadening a bit. Then he was sure of it.

“Father,” Ugilino whispered urgently in his priest's ear. “The cardinal's clothes. It's smiling. It's a demon.”

“Quiet, fool. Don't speak in front . . .”

“I'm telling you, Father,” Ugi insisted, shaking the clergyman's sleeve. “It looked at me before and now it's smiling. It's alive?”

“Shut up and don't say another . . .”

But Ugilino would not be deterred this time. “Father, I think they're all demons. That monk looks like Carmella.”

“Do you not hear me?” Lurenzano shouted, pulling his arm away. “What did I tell you? Now begone! Get out of here!” and Father Lurenzano shoved Ugilino hard toward the door. Shamira as the monk moved to get out of his way but, as Ugilino stumbled, he reached up and grabbed the gown's hood, pulling it off her face. Though older, her long red hair made it obvious that something was amiss.

Everyone, including the three teens, gasped.

“It's Carmella,” the Signora cried.

“How?” asked the younger Shamira.

“Cardinal, what is the meaning of . . .” Father Lurenzano began, but Ugilino didn't wait for an answer. All his months of frustration at the orphans, his whole lifetime of frustrations, burst from his chest.

“LIARS!” he screamed, hefting the ax up with two hands.

“Think nothing of this,” the older Hansum as cardinal was beginning to say, when Ugilino tensed his arms and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“DEVILS!” and he charged Shamira in the monk's robes. The ax came down right at her head and Zat momentarily took her out of phase. She disappeared and came back into view a few feet away. The ax embedded itself into the gravel shop floor.

“Satan's spawn!” Lurenzano cried.

“Cristo save us!” Agistino rejoined, “You're all the Devil's minions!” and he pushed the teens who were trying to comfort him away. Shamira took hold of the Signora's arm.

“Signora, we're not evil,” Shamira pleaded, but what was happening was all too much for the medieval woman. She shrieked in Shamira's face, holding up her hands as if shielding herself from a blow.

“Master, please,” the younger Hansum begged. “It's not how it looks. We're just trying to save Guilietta.” But the big man twisted away from Hansum and grabbed his wife in a protective embrace.

Hansum as a cardinal turned to Father Lurenzano, “I can expl . . .” but the priest ran at him, his filthy hands and cracked nails curled into claws. He bounced off a force field that Sideways erected. Sparks flew and Lurenzano was thrown halfway across the room.

“Not my priest, you devil,” Ugilino screamed, and he attacked the mock cardinal with the ax, but it too bounced off the force field.

“KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!” Lurenzano shouted from the floor.

Ugilino lifted his ax again and swung at the older Lincoln but, before the ax fell, Ugilino's eyes went wide when he saw Zat's cloak grow extra hands, coming to grab the ax handle.

“Ahieee,” Ugilino screamed and ran to the other side of the shop.

“It's not as it seems,” Pan as Aurelius cried, the bug-eyed Ugilino running right through him, swinging the ax. The sharp blade whooshed through the hologram and crashed down onto a lathe, smashing the spindle assembly.

“My lathes, my living!” Agistino cried, and Ugilino fell on the lathe, breaking it further.

“Pan, what should we do?” the younger Hansum shouted.

“The ax, get the ax!”

“Brother, stop,” the younger Lincoln cried, running to Ugilino, “Let us explain . . .” but as Ugilino saw the boy he had lived with coming at him, he turned from his position on his knees and swung the ax backwards with all of his might, the butt of the blade catching Lincoln full force in the face. It exploded into a ball of red and Ugilino shot to his feet, the now-bloodied ax back in both hands.

“Lincoln!” both Hansums and Shamiras screamed. The older Lincoln threw off his cowl and stared in shock at his now prone younger self. He was lying on the floor without a face, his body twitching.

“Lincoln!”
Medeea screamed, projecting herself toward the body.
“The nano bits!”
she shouted to the older Lincoln, who immediately ran to his body, fumbling in his pocket for the vessel of tears.

“Agistono!” the Signora cried, her pathetic face white with fear. “Save me!” and her husband dragged her bodily out the door as the melee continued.

“I'LL KILL YOU, UGILINO!” the younger Hansum screamed. Lunging, he ducked under the next ax blow and plowed his shoulder into Ugilino's gut, throwing him backwards and causing the ax to fly from his hand. As Ugilino crashed into the wall, the ax spun through the air and landed on the work table holding Pan's half-reinforced lamp. The table tipped and its contents crashed to the ground.

Pan's image broke into a million tiny cubes as his lamp bounced across the gravel, the image of Saint Aurelius turning back to a satyr.

“My lamp!” Pan shouted.

“It's his talisman!” Father Lurenzano shouted. “The beast lives in the talisman.”

“I am undone, my children,” Pan's disintegrating image cried.

The world began to move in slow motion for the older Shamira. She looked all around at the scene in front of her; at the old Lincoln pouring a few drops of nano bits onto the unrecognizable younger Lincoln.

“Medeea, can you help him?” the older Lincoln asked.

“We've got to save Guilietta!” the older Hansum shouted at the younger Hansum, who was still sitting on Ugi and beating him.

Shamira looked to Father Lurenzano, who was picking up the ax, his eyes fixed on Pan's lamp in the gravel. Then she looked at the younger version of herself. Their eyes locked.

“Save yourselves,” Pan shouted, but the younger Shamira didn't heed him. She pulled her gaze away from her older self and ran toward Pan's lamp. But instead of racing Ugilino, as she had in the first reality, now she was racing the priest. Shamira lunged for the lamp. The older Shamira watched her younger self's hand reach out, expecting what happened before to be repeated, the ax would rip her sleeve and scrape her arm. Father Lurenzano's face turned into a snarl as he lifted the ax. It rose in an arch, still in slow motion, and began its descent. To the older Shamira, it was as if her younger self was half suspended in the air, her hand outstretched, her eyes locked on their target. The ax continued its descent and then the world snapped back into fast motion.

“NOT THE GIRL!” Pan screamed. The older Shamira's eyes sprung open in stark terror, and that's when the sharp blade sliced into the younger Shamira's spine, blood spraying up in a fan. Her body fell with a thump.

“NO!” the older Shamira shrieked.

Everybody turned as Lurenzano wrenched the ax out of the body and locked his eyes on the brass lamp. He didn't raise it high, but used the blood-drenched bludgeon to come straight down and pummel the tiny charm.

“PAN!” the younger Hansum shouted from atop Ugilino. He twisted around to disengage himself from his fight just as the ax met the lamp. An explosion of light and smoke rose around Pan. His beautiful and grotesque face contorted. He winked away without a word.

The older Shamira's head snapped back to the sound of the younger Hansum screaming while trying to twist away from Ugilino. But the strong oaf caught Hansum by the arms and stopped him for the briefest of moments. It was long enough.

“STOP!” Shamira heard herself screaming, finally trying to run to the young Hansum's aid. Something held her back. An energy field from Sideways. She looked on in horror as Father Lurenzano came toward Hansum with the ax already swinging, but the rising Sands of Time blocked her view.

“DEATH TO DEVILS,” she heard Lurenzano cry.

“GUILIET . . .”

Old Hansum sat bent over, his face in his hands, exhausted. This had been one of the few situations in time travel when there wasn't all the time in the universe to fix things. Their younger selves had been killed and they had to get back to repair the situation immediately. The new reality was racing through the folds of time and would soon catch up to the 24
^th
and 25
^th
centuries. Despite wearing their temporal protectors, this situation was unprecedented. They didn't know what would happen in the future if they were killed in the past.

So, despite their emotional exhaustion, they went back the few minutes and interceded with themselves
before
they entered the workshop as clergymen. Not a word was needed to be spoken this time. Not a single word. When their earlier selves saw their duplicates show up, dressed the same but covered in blood, they just shook their heads gravely, looked at each other and winked away.

Now back atop the wall, the older Lincoln smiled weakly at his oldest friend, Hansum. They were sitting together, backs leaning against the brick parapets.

“I guess we can now say with certainty there are not many things more off-putting than seeing yourself brutally killed in an alternate reality.” He was trying to make light, but Hansum didn't smile. Neither did Shamira or the A.I.s.

Medeea, who was sitting next to Shamira on the other side of the walkway, looked over at her girlfriend. Shamira was staring straight ahead at nothing, her face like granite.

“Shamira, are you going to be okay? Do you want us to take you back?”

Shamira looked at her, eyebrows knit together.

“No. Let's get on with it.” Shamira said, and she put a hand to her temple, calling up the details of the next linear point in the intervention. “This plan seems to be running out of timeline.”

“I know,” the older Hansum answered, his tired eyes drooping. He took a breath and stood, somewhat unsteadily. “Okay. I'll recap what's next. It's
after
the original fight at the shop this time. Pan is dead. Our younger selves have been barred from the house and we've gone to the palace to get soldiers and a carriage. But there are none to be had and the Podesta's going to show up in the morning. That's when we change things.”

“Hansum, what happens if we don't find a nexus point there?” Shamira asked.

“Then I guess it's over.”

Now Lincoln forced himself to his feet.

“It ain't over . . . till it's over.”

Finally Hansum smiled. He rose, clapped his hands and began giving orders.

“Shamira, Lincoln, Medeea. You three go back a week, to when the market is still open. Buy the herbs and make Pan's antibiotic. Don't buy them from Elder Catherine. She could get suspicious. I'll meet Mastino at the northern gate, at the time we planned. Sideways. Zat. Costumes.”

Everyone's appearance changed, and they were gone.

It was chaos at the northern gate. Few people were being let out and fewer in. Men and women were wailing and pleading with grim-faced soldiers who ignored them. Those not pleading either stood or sat silently, some scratching madly at their blackened buboes, the huge, swollen plague sores that would soon kill them. Against the wall, piled like so much cordwood, were the bodies of men, women and children who had already succumbed.