A smashing wave caught her with smothering force. Water battered her. Scouring sand and stinging salt abraded her whole body. She felt a fist strike her chest. Instinctively, she lashed upwards with the knife. A hand closed around her wrist. Agony shot through her arm. Granite fingers dug into the tendons.
Sibyl twisted frantically, half-drowned as another wave smashed into her from behind. His grip loosened. He fell sideways, dragged by the water. She managed to wrench free. She crawled toward the boat chamber, coughing violently, nearly paralyzed by the wet cloth around her legs.
His weight slammed into her from behind. She sprawled forward into sand. Bartlett's fingers closed on her neck. He forced her head back and sideways. She lunged upward, kicked madly with both feet. No good...
Pain mushroomed through her neck. Sibyl stabbed blindly backwards with the knife. He howled and let go. Sibyl rolled heavily onto her side.
Bartlett was on his knees above her. His face had twisted into a grimace, his flesh waxy white. He clutched at his side. Blood dripped from between his fingers.
"You—bitch—"
He lunged awkwardly. Sibyl came to her knees as he dove forward, off balance. Sluggish, staggering drunkenly, Sibyl brought the knife up between them. The shock of his weight slammed her to the ground. The impact jarred her from wrists to shoulders. They toppled over backwards. He landed heavily on her chest. An agonized cry ripped loose. He tried to right himself, managed to push himself up with one arm.
The knife was buried to the hilt in his chest.
Two inches below the right collarbone.
Sibyl shoved hard. He windmilled and crashed backward. Tony fell heavily into the entrance of the boat chamber. For a moment, the only thing she could do was huddle on the sand and let the waves crash over her. Then, slowly, she forced her knees to function. She managed to crawl into the chamber beside him.
His breathing was shallow, hoarse. In the light from the fallen lantern his skin was grey. His lips were drawn back in a rictus grimace.
"Sibyl—" One hand groped. She avoided it like a water moccasin. She heard a dreadful sound and looked up. Bartlett had wrapped both hands around the hilt. He was trying to wrench it loose. A moment later, he collapsed, keening in agony. He'd failed to budge it. "Sibyl—" His lips barely moved. "For the—love of—God—"
Lamplight flickered crazily across his face. His eyes were ghastly burned holes in a cadaver's face. She felt detached, apart from his pain, as though he were a flickering image in a silent movie. Like thunder in her brain, words rumbled unbidden into her thoughts. "For the love of God, Montresor... ."
Sibyl crouched above him. She didn't even recognize her own harsh voice. "How do you get back, Tony?"
She waited while his lips worked. "Recall—device—"
"Where?"
His fingers clawed at the knife embedded in his flesh.
"Where?" She leaned a fraction of her weight on the handle.
He screamed. She clenched her teeth over bile.
"Ahh—p-p-pocket—"
She searched under his tunic. Beneath it he wore khaki military-style shorts, with deep, button-down pockets. She found a set of keys and a variety of coins, which she impatiently shoved back. In a second pocket she found a dense metallic oblong he'd wrapped in several layers of plastic and metal foil. It was an inch thick, six inches long, three inches wide. A latch-type cover opened to reveal a miniaturized, color-coded keypad of no obvious pattern. Number keys and blank, colored keys ran in rows beneath a series of glowing LED numbers. Time coordinates? Or geographic? Or both? Something else entirely?
"How does it work, Tony?"
Bartlett's lips moved again. "Take—me—too—"
She smiled coldly. "Sure, Tony. I'd be glad to turn you over to Interpol. Just tell me how to work this little gadget."
"Red—button—preset—mash it—takes ten—fifteen minutes to—open time hole—"
She closed the lid. Carefully rewrapped it. Then relieved him of the money pouch at his outer tunic belt. She dumped out the Roman coins and slid the recall device snugly inside it, then ripped off the lower half of Bartlett's tunic. Sibyl used the strip to fashion a belt and tied the pouch securely to her waist. When she glanced up, Tony was watching her. Pain had dulled the characteristic glitter of his eyes.
Blood-sucking leech...
"I'm going to need this, Tony." She took hold of the knife with both hands. She straddled him and braced both feet, then thought better and placed one foot on his chest. Sibyl yanked up, hard.
He jerked. Screamed. Then fell back, panting hoarsely, eyes squeezed shut. Blood soaked the front of his tunic, welling up in a terrible flood. He reeked of fear, dirt, and the coppery stench of blood. She searched him more thoroughly and relieved him of a short, wicked-looking dirk. There were a lot of people out and about on the streets. Granny Johnson had always told her, "Sibyl, never overlook options."
She stuck the dirk through her belt. Smart old Granny... .
He opened pain-dulled eyes as she rose to her feet. He blinked and slowly focused on her. It took him several moments to assimilate the stony expression that seemed to have frozen her face. She imagined the headsman must have looked much the way she did before he relieved Anne Boleyn of her lovely head... .
"Sibyl?" he whispered. "Sibyl—please—"
She held his gaze for a long moment. Thought about forcing him to quote Poe for her.
Settled for: "Burn in hell, Tony."
He screamed her name until she was so far away, the noise from volcano and earthquake-tossed surf drowned out the sound. She gripped the blood-slippery handle of the knife until her hand ached. Sibyl gritted her teeth as she waded through angry, frothing water.
She'd vomit later.
Right now, she just didn't have time.
Charlie began his search with the shipyard. Any boats that might have been in the harbor earlier in the day were gone now. Xanthus' ship was conspicuously absent. At least he wouldn't have to worry about search parties looking for him. He scowled, then urged the horse down into the pounding surf. Silver protested once, tossed his head, then waded doggedly forward. Breakers slammed into the horse's side and drenched Charlie within seconds.
"Hold tight, Lucky!" he called, tightening his own grip on the little girl. Small fingers closed over his arm. He checked dark boat chambers, holding his lantern out on the end of his sword to light the dark, wet spaces. There were a few dinghies left, far back in the chambers, and a couple of masted fishing boats with the masts unstepped, but nothing which looked capable of handling that seismically ravaged sea.
There was no trace of Sibyl, either.
He worked his way down past the main part of town and shivered under the ghostly outline of the Suburban Baths above him. Its wide, glassed-in main windows overlooked the sea like monstrous black eyes. Charlie hunched his shoulders unconsciously, aware that Bericus' villa was just above that terrace wall. He kept searching.
When he saw a faint glow coming from one of the chambers ahead, his heart shuddered to a halt. Then his pulse kicked in at triple time. He urged Silver forward and gained the entrance. Charlie reined the horse around to find a huddled figure lying far enough back that the breakers didn't swamp across it. He started to dismount—
—and the man he knew as Antonius Caelerus lifted his head. Tony! The man stared dully up at Charlie. Bartlett had bled into a crude bandage he'd pressed to his shoulder. The thug wet his lips and tried to focus his vision. Charlie debated whether to address him in Latin or English.
"Help... me," the man croaked in Latin. "Slave escaped... attacked me... got to find..."