Madman's Dance (Time Rovers #3)(136)

The Irishman hesitated. “How’d ya know it was me?”

“You’ve been following me ever since the boarding house.”

Clancy laughed. “Yer smarter than ya look.”

“Some days.”

The large man descended the stairs and sat next to him. “Good to see yer alive. Close one, that.”

“Very.” Keats tugged on his collar again to loosen it. He could no longer stand anything tight around his neck.

“Ya owe me that reward,” Clancy said.

“You didn’t turn me in,” Keats replied, sensing no anger in the other man’s words.

“I kept ya alive while ya were free.”

“I need you to keep me that way a little longer. If you do, I’ll be happy to pay that debt.” Keats gestured. “This is a list of Effington’s warehouses in Rotherhithe. I suspect we will find the explosives in some of them.”

“Why ya think that?”

“I just do. I need your help, Clancy. Someone is planning a very unpleasant surprise for our fellow citizens come tomorrow.” He tucked away the paper and told Clancy what they’d learned, without mentioning Jacynda’s involvement or that of the shifters.



His companion whistled softly. “Sweet Jesus, it’ll be a massacre. We Irish’ll be blamed.”

“Very likely. I need your help, and that of some of the dockworkers. We have to go through all those warehouses, find the bombs, and then I’ll disarm them.”

“Why can’t the rozzers do that?” Clancy asked, looking skeptical.

“If I bring a swarm of Blue Bottles in here, the plotters may move the bombs somewhere else. We need to have them think everything is going as planned.”

Clancy shook his head. “Not sure if the others will want to be part of this.”

“If all this burns, they’ll be no work for months. Nothing like the threat of starvation to motivate a man.”

The Irishman nodded grimly. “Ya have a point. Come on, I’ll take ya to ’em.”





Chapter 14




Friday, 9 November, 1888

Arundel Hotel

Cynda stared into the darkness for a couple of hours, unable to settle down. Too much was parading through her mind. A quick check of her watch showed it was nearly four in the morning. Over in Dorset Street, Jack the Ripper was making short work of Mary Kelly.

Shivering at the thought, Cynda rolled out of bed. She wedged herself in the bedroom door, bone tired. Theo looked up from his maps, dark half-moons under his eyes.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked in a voice that grated like sandpaper. She shook her head. “Neither can I.”

She drifted to the couch and flopped down. “What’s worrying you?”

Theo made a frustrated jab at the maps. “The precision of the explosions. That’s not feasible using Victorian technology.”

Which left only one option. “Someone from our time is helping them,” she ventured. Theo nodded wearily. “Copeland?”

“He’s my odds-on favorite right now.” He joined her on the couch. “I forwarded the coin to Fulham. I’m hoping to have a report soon.”

“Then you’re doing all you can.”

“I’m not convinced of that.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “I’ve been na?ve.”

“How so?”

“I thought that once we sorted Keats’ timeline, everything would be fine. I thought—” Theo halted abruptly.

“Go on,” she prompted.

He looked over at her. “I thought how wonderful it would be here with you. I imagined us going to the theater together, maybe to the zoo. We would hire one of those colorful boats and float up and down the Regent’s Canal.”

Theo was a daydreamer? She never would have imagined that.



“We would sip wine as we floated along,” he suggested. He wore a lazy expression, like they were already on the water. “I see white swans gliding by us in the brilliant sunshine, the trees in full leaf, and…” His enthusiasm dimmed. “That’s not going to happen, is it?”

His unusual pessimism was jarring. “Not right now,” Cynda responded gently. “But someday.”

He leaned in closer to her. “Someday.” She held her breath, anticipating what might follow.

Just then his interface lit up, vibrating across the top of the desk.

“Fulham has the worst sense of timing,” he grumbled. He returned to his work, but not before giving her a fond smile.

Cynda returned to bed and was finally trudging down that muzzy tunnel of sleep when she heard Theo talking to her. Something about the coin and going to 2058. When she forced her eyes open, he was already gone.

~??~??~??~



In the presence of mine enemies. They were all around Keats, some thirty dockworkers, trying to keep out of the rain. Keats thought he recognized some of their faces from his time at the call-on shelter, back when he’d still been on the run. They’d all rubbed elbows together, trying to find a job when there were too few to go around. From what he could tell the majority of them were Irish, with a few Germans and Russians thrown in for good measure.

Rousting most of them out of their beds, Clancy had gathered the ones he trusted most. That still hadn’t made it easy. The argument had flowed back and forth between them ever since they’d gathered. Most of them would be happy to cut Keats’ throat and call it a day. It was only the big Irishman’s presence that held them in check.