She was going to get in so much trouble over this. Even if they didn’t arrest Galen, they’d want to ask him more questions. And, if she could get him back where he belonged, he wouldn’t be around, or traceable. If he was still here, then they wouldn’t like his answers. Loony bin for him for sure. Great. Just great.
The two turned out of the room, taking the sword with them. Behind her, Galen roared.
“They shall not take my sword!”
The officers turned in surprise. He spoke in Latin, but the sentiment was clear. Lucy shrugged apologetically. “Authentic period weapons are hard to come by.”
“He can pick it up down at the precinct, if we clear it of being involved in a crime.” The acne-scarred officer frowned. “If not, you’d better find him a lawyer who speaks Finn.” The officers closed the door behind them.
Lucy let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“You let them take my sword.” Galen was outraged.
“You are . . . fortunate they did not take you also.”
“Loose this shackle,” he commanded. “I need my sword.”
“What would you do, fight with them?” Was that the right word for fight? Her study of Latin in order to translate texts wasn’t exactly “Conversational Latin for Time Travelers.” And he spoke it with a rhythm and pronunciation very unlike hers. Possibly because Latin was a dead language and no one now living knew how it sounded. That was also probably the only reason they could understand each other at all. Latin was a language frozen in time. She noted the rebellious look in his eyes. He was so in over his head. If he attacked the officers, they’d just pull their guns and shoot him. He wouldn’t even know what had happened. He’d be no match for Colonel Casey, either.
She was suddenly certain that Casey would lock Galen up. He would not be interested in just letting a living, breathing Viking go back where he came from. And the effect of snatching him out of his time, losing whatever things he would have done in his life, outweighed the danger of sending him back. She made a decision. She’d have to risk it, hospital germs and all. And she had to do it by herself.
“You must go to your time. You want that, yes?”
“Ja. This is a place for feebleminded discards of the gods. I go back to the battle now.” He tried to sit up and went white as the pain struck him. His breathing got shallow and sweat broke out on his forehead. He’d never make it out the door.
“I don’t think so.” That was a problem. Someone was going to discover the time machine sitting in the bottom of the parking structure, and soon. They must use it tonight.
“This place is evil,” he insisted. But he lay back down, causing him to wince anew.
“I’ll get a nurse,” she muttered in English. She left him looking disgusted with himself.
She found a slight woman with mouse-colored hair writing in charts at the nurses’ station. “Excuse me, ma’am, my cousin seems to be in quite a bit of pain.”
“Oh, the big guy? Let me do something about that.” She checked the chart and then went to a locked cabinet and got out a vial and a syringe. “He’s one tough cookie. Put up a real fight in the recovery room.” She glanced to Lucy. “Sorry about the restraints. Must be hard when you don’t know the language and people are doing painful things to you.”
Lucy hadn’t thought much about that. She’d been thinking he was a disaster for her and possibly for the fabric of time, but she hadn’t thought about how he might be feeling about this whole thing. Pretty insensitive of her.
“What’s his name?”
“Bjorn Knudsen.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Denmark.” Uh-oh. She was losing track of her lies.
The nurse bustled out from the station and across the hall. “I’ll have to put it on my list of ‘must-see’ places.” She grinned at Lucy and pushed in through the door to Galen’s room. “We cleaned him up as best we could in Recovery, but orderlies and nurses will be fighting over bath duty tomorrow before he’s discharged.”
Galen eyed the nurse and her syringe with glaring rage. “Will you join them in torturing me?” he accused Lucy as he tugged in vain at the restraint.
“She will stop your pain,” Lucy said. The nurse opened a valve on Galen’s IV and stuck in the syringe, plunged, and twisted it shut.
“There. Should take effect almost immediately.” She smiled at Galen. “That’ll hold you for a few hours, handsome. Get some rest.”
“Will it put him out entirely?”
The nurse shook her head. “It’s just Demerol. It’ll make him groggy. With what he’s been through, he’ll probably sleep.” She blew out a breath and shook her head as she took one more longing look at Galen before she left. To the police he probably looked homeless, but to the nurse he looked good enough to eat. Women were always suckers for blue eyes. And cheekbones. His hair was lightened by the sun so it was a dozen shades of light brown and blond. The narrow braids could be interpreted as exotic, not crazy. His arms were big and muscled under the thin hospital gown, his skin tanned. Lucy could imagine him at the prow of a dragon ship, stripped to the waist.
What was she thinking? She shook herself mentally. “Feel better?”
“Flax in my head,” he slurred. “No weapon . . .”
“Rest. Then we’ll go.”
“Your promise, wench?” But his eyes were closing.
Was that the Latin word for . . . for wench? Or had he just called her a slut? “The name is Lucy, not wench.” God, she was glad she hadn’t lived in 912.
“Looshy . . . ,” and he was out.
Chapter 3
“Okay, sleeping beauty. Time to wake up.”
Lucy turned his head toward her by his bearded chin and watched his eyelids flutter. It was four in the morning. She dared not wait longer if she was going to take him back to 912 tonight. She’d filled his prescriptions at the all-night hospital pharmacy: a batch of antibiotics and a big bottle of Vicodin 750s for pain. She’d bought some bandages and surgical tape and some hydrogen peroxide to send back with him. Who knew what dirty rags he’d end up binding his wounds with in 912? Even the antibiotics wouldn’t help him if he didn’t keep them clean.
The question was whether she had to take him back herself. She’d had four hours to think about it. She sure didn’t want to. He could go alone and the machine would come back to the present in two or three weeks. But who knew what could happen to the machine in that time? Losing Leonardo’s machine would be a tragedy.
Then there was the question of exactly what time to return Galen to. If she went back to before he was wounded, would there be two of him in the battle? That couldn’t be good. All the time travel stories or movies agreed that having two of you in one place and time was very bad.
Great. Using sci-fi as your only guide? She really was in unknown territory.
But she couldn’t send him back to a time later than the battle, either. What if the locals thought he had died of his wounds instead of disappearing? When he reappeared they’d think he’d been resurrected or something. She didn’t want to be responsible for starting a new religion. Changing things in ways she couldn’t foresee was the most frightening thing of all.
“Do you want to go from this place?” She switched to Latin.
“Ja. We go now.” He blinked away his sleep, though he was still groggy.
She bent over his forearm and carefully peeled back the adhesive tape that held the needle flat. “Do not move.” She slid the needle out. A drop of blood oozed. She tore off a little bit of gauze from the roll in her bag and pressed it against the needle-stick, then sealed the tape across it again. “Not bad if I do say so,” she muttered in English as she surveyed her work.
Galen clanked his chain. “Unbuckle this, woman,” he ordered.
“Don’t you ever say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’?” she grumbled as she worked the leather straps. She couldn’t manage the sentiment in Latin. When he was free, he rubbed his wrist, though the restraint had not been tight. Maybe he just wanted to rub away his helplessness.