“Any particular subject?” said Happy.
“You said earlier. . that what was going on here had attracted forces from Beyond, luring them into our reality. So if we can shut down what’s happening in the rooms on this floor, then maybe we can break, or at the very least weaken, the link between the inn and the Powers infesting it.”
“Good idea,” said Happy. “Worth a try. I suppose.”
“If only things were that simple,” sighed Kim.
* * *
They all gathered together at the top of the stairs, looking up and down the long corridor as it stretched away to either side. The landing was presenting its best Perfectly Normal, Nothing To See Here, Move Along face; but none of them were buying it. They could all feel a cold, spiky tension on the still air, a feeling of forces lying in wait, of things waiting to happen. Bad things. The light was steady, and the shadows lay still, and all the doors were safely, sensibly shut.
But the landing still felt like one big trap, waiting to be sprung.
“All right,” said Happy. “Where do we start? I’m spoilt for choice, for things to flinch away from.”
JC ignored him, giving all his attention to Brook. “Which of these rooms contain Timeslips?”
“You have to be careful,” said Brook, looking about him uneasily. “You can’t be sure of anything, here. The rooms move around, behind closed doors. Any door you choose might open onto a different Time period.”
“And yet you let us stay in rooms up here, without warning us!” said Melody, angrily.
“I said I’m sorry!” said Brook.
“And that’s supposed to be enough?” said Melody. “Where’s my gun. .”
“Leave the man alone, Mel,” JC said firmly. “He is our native guide in treacherous territory. We need him.”
“Yeah,” growled Happy. “We can always use someone to throw into a dangerous situation, just to see what happens.”
“Don’t listen to the nasty telepath, Adrian,” said JC. “We would never do that to you. Unless it was necessary. Or funny. Now, tell me how to find a room with a Timeslip. There must be a way. .”
The barman nodded slowly, reluctantly. “You do develop a. . feel for them after a while. That’s why I thought you’d be safe in the rooms I chose for you. Be fair; whatever you experienced in those rooms, it wasn’t anything to do with Timeslips, was it?”
“Still looking for my gun. .” said Melody.
“There’s a door down here,” Brook said quickly. “It’s got the right kind of feel to it.”
He headed quickly off down the right-hand corridor, looking closely at each door he passed but not stopping until he was half-way down the landing. JC led the others after him, all of them keeping a careful eye out for anything unnatural, or even out of the ordinary. The doors they passed stayed firmly shut, apparently perfectly normal. Brook stood uneasily before his chosen door. It didn’t look any different from any of the others. He took out his keys, fumbled through them to find one particular key, then stopped. He looked miserably at JC, who nodded firmly back. Brook unlocked the door, turned the door-handle very carefully, then pushed the door open an inch. He stepped back from the door, retreating quickly until his back slammed up against the wall on the far side of the landing. JC gestured for the others to stay put and moved forward to stand beside Brook.
“What’s in this room, Adrian? What lies behind that door? Which particular part of Time Past does it hold?”
“I don’t know,” said Brook, all his attention focused on the slightly open door. “I never know. The only way to find out is to look inside. But be careful; what’s there has a way of sucking you in. .”
“We ain’t frightened of no room,” said JC. “Only. . reasonably cautious.”
He moved forward and pushed the door all the way open with one hard shove. Everyone tensed, trying to be ready for anything; but nothing emerged from the room. JC moved cautiously forward, one step at a time, until he was standing right before the open doorway. As close as he could get without actually entering the room itself. He planted both feet firmly on the threshold and placed both hands against either side of the door-frame, before looking inside the room. The room looked placidly back at him. It seemed like a perfectly ordinary, everyday room. All the usual furnishings. No-one there. JC leaned forward, studying every detail.
“Don’t go in!” Brook said loudly from the far side of the corridor. “Crossing the threshold takes you out of this Time and into the Past. And once that door slams shut, you’re lost in the Past. Like all my missing guests.”
“Are you sure this is a Timeslip?” said JC. “I can’t see anything obviously old-fashioned.”
“Well, there are two clues,” said Brook. “First, none of my rooms have furnishings like that. I had the whole place redecorated when I took over. And second, that’s bright sunlight falling through the room’s window.”
“Ah. Yes,” said JC. “Look at that daylight when it’s night here. Bit of a giveaway, that. Well spotted, Adrian! So the room appearing so normal was part of the trap, to lure me in. Interesting. .”
He leaned into the room, took hold of the door’s handle, and pulled the door closed again. He stood and looked at his hand for a long moment, half-expecting it to look or feel different from having entered the Past. And then he turned back to Happy and Melody and Kim, all of whom were watching him carefully from a respectable distance.
“Why have Timeslips at all?” said JC. “I mean, ghosts and monsters I can understand, but. . traps to drag people back in Time? What purpose does that serve?”
“I think it all comes down to the local power source and the unnatural force contained in the storm,” said Melody. “With such sheer power involved, it’s putting an unbearable strain on local reality. Like Happy said, the rage driving the storm is the rage of the sacrificed victim. I hate to theorise without proper equipment around to back me up, but. . I think the storm’s been building for centuries, becoming so powerful in its own right that it’s. . broken Time. Or at least, local Time. You might say, Time is out of joint, in this vicinity.”
“Time. .” Happy said thoughtfully. “Always tricky. . I’ve never felt the same about Time since the Travelling Doctor explained it to me. Anyway, if the storm currently raging round this inn really was born in the days of the Druids, then what we have here is the Past directly affecting the Present. Which is never good. If the storm is powering the Timeslips, that means there’s a direct connection between what’s inside the inn and what’s outside it. So whatever we can do to weaken, disrupt, or even destroy the Timeslips. . should have a direct effect on the storm.”
“I don’t know which particular pills you’re on right now,” said JC. “But I’d stick with them if I were you.”
Melody shot JC a hard look but said nothing.
JC looked at Brook. “Have you ever noticed any pattern to the Timeslips? Do they appear in any order? Does any one room seem to prefer a particular Time or period?”
“No,” said Brook. “None of this has ever made any sense to me. It’s always seemed. . entirely random. And there’s never any warning! The bad doors come and go; and so do the poor people who get trapped inside them.”
JC turned to Melody. “Come on, you’re the girl science geek expert on this team! Think of something we can try as an experiment. Something to give us more information to work with. And don’t tell me all the things you could do if only you had your proper equipment! I need something we can do right now. So think! Improvise!”
“Okay,” said Melody, frostily. “What if we sent someone into that room, on the end of a length of rope, tied around his waist? The rope would link him to the Present corridor even when he was in the room’s Past; so even if the door did try to close, we could always yank the volunteer back out again.”
“She’s not looking at me, but she’s talking about me,” said Happy.