A Rip Through Time(58)

I don’t even get the last word out before I stop short. That shape could be a pile of rags or could be an actual child. That’s not what stops me. It’s the paper pinned to the fabric, the word on it, in block letters.

CATRIONA



I stop, and I blink, that sense of unreality seeping back. When a shape swoops from the shadows, I spin to see a black-cloaked figure holding a rope. I see the rope more than anything. A raised length of rope, and in that moment, the last week evaporates, and I’m back in that alley, a killer lifting a length of old rope in exactly this same way.

That is my undoing. First the paper with Catriona’s name. Then the rope. There’s a shock of “this can’t be real” that makes me react a split second too late.

Just like the last time.

This isn’t possible. Is not possible.

Unreal. Impossible. Therefore, not happening. Cannot be happening, and so it is a dream, and if it is, then it is the door back. Let that rope fall over my neck. Let that rope tighten around my throat. Let it steal my breath. Let me sink into unconsciousness, and I will rise in twenty-first-century Edinburgh, alive and well.

This is the way home. That is what part of my brain screams. The terrified part that I’ve tamped down since I awoke four days ago. The little girl who just wants to go home, to her nan and her parents, whatever the cost. Each time she rises, sobbing in despair, I shove her back into silence, and now she roars at the top of her lungs.

This is the way. Just let him do it.

My heart bleeds for that little girl, the most scared and powerless part of me. But she is the voice of fear and cowardice and desperation, and to listen is to surrender. To say I would risk death rather than live this life.

The rope comes down and my hand slams up. It’s not the hand holding the knife. It should be, but my moment of shock is enough that when I do respond, it’s pure instinct.

My free hand flies up and accomplishes what it could not the last time. It gets under the rope. I grab it, and I twist, and I slam my knife into the bulk of black behind me. The blade sinks into his side, and a man’s voice lets out a gasp that’s half pain, half outrage.

He falls back, hand going to his side. It’s hardly a fatal wound. I’ve never had reason to stab anyone before, and apparently, I’m not very good at it. I slash at him, but he blocks easily. Then I fight, almost relieved that I no longer need to use the knife. I punch, fist slamming into his face. I kick and, yep, that’s a mistake with the skirts, but I manage to hike them up fast enough for a roundhouse kick that slams him into the wall.

As he flies back, something falls from his coat and flutters to the cobblestones. A bright blue feather with a distinctive eye pattern.

A peacock feather.

“You are shitting me,” I whisper. I look at him. “Seriously? You’re the bastard who killed Archie Evans?” My gaze flits over his outfit. All black, including a mask and what I now realize is a cape.

“Raven, my ass. You’re just a damn turkey vulture.”

The man stares. I see his eyes, that’s all. They could be brown. They could be dark blue or hazel or green. It’s too dark to tell, but that hardly matters. I have the killer we’ve been looking for. That’s why my name is on a piece of paper atop that pile of rags. That’s why I felt as if I was being followed all night. Because I was. I’m his next victim, not because I’m a threat, but because I’m a message to the men stalking him.

He stands there, blinking at me. Then he says, “You.”

One word, uttered on a whisper.

A cry in an alley. A rope around my neck. A hundred and fifty years earlier, Catriona is in the same place, hands around her neck. I leapt into her body.

But I wasn’t the only one in that alley.

What if my killer leapt into her killer’s body?

That’s why the child’s cry led me down this alley. Not a coincidence, not at all. My attacker must have heard the cries that led me to that twenty-first-century alley. He’d replicated that using a child to lure in a hapless housemaid.

Yet as soon as I spoke, with my modern words, my modern attitude, combined with my modern fighting, he came to the same realization I just have.

I’m not Catriona. I’m the woman who’d followed that voice into an alley.

We’re both here.

We both jumped through time.

Is that possible? What if I’m leaping to conclusions?

Does it matter? Nope, not when this guy—whoever he is—is currently trying to kill me.

He lunges at me. I slash with the knife, hitting him in the arm, blood spraying. Before I can strike again, his other arm smacks mine hard enough for me to drop the knife. It clatters over the cobblestones, and I hit him, a one-two punch.

My knee rises for a blow, but of course it goes nowhere, trapped by my skirts. That mistake gives him time to slam a fist into my jaw. I reel back. He goes to hit me again, but I punch him in the gut hard enough for my dress to rip. He doubles over, retching.

“What’s the matter?” I say. “Not the helpless victim you expected?”

He hits me. My fault for getting cocky. He hits me in the stomach, enough to wind me, but I’m lunging at him when boots thunder down the lane.

“What’s that?” someone says. “You there!”

“Oh, thank the lord,” I begin, in a girlish voice. “I have been—”