The Multitude, стр. 76
Abelia lifted to the tips of her toes and planted a kiss on Henry’s cheek. “Don’t be hurt. Brewster may be the reason I came through the portal, but he isn’t why I might stay.”
A slow smile brought some humor to his eyes. “Another schemer.”
“And you’re a brute, but you rescued me rather than worrying about your own skin.”
In a different time and place, Brewster might have been drawn in by the odd couple’s mating dance, but how long could his burst of courage last before he dissolved into a quivering mass of jelly? “Henry, I need you to send me into the past.”
Henry’s smile faded. “Presuming I had such a gift, why would I use it?”
“To set things right in Virtus. Don’t you see the destiny aspect here?”
“Maybe I should introduce you to my friend Gabriella. The two of you think alike.”
“We’ve already met.”
“Then take your request to her. I’ll have no hand in changing history.”
This guy was maddening. What could Abelia possibly see in him? “You’ve got it all wrong. I’ll be choosing, not changing.” Clearly events had multiple versions. The subway suicide he’d just seen conflicted with the story two witnesses told the cops about his involvement in Carla’s murder. And now he had a third iteration in mind, one that had sent his pounding heart into overdrive. He directed his plea to Abelia. “This is all about choice, isn’t it? Otherwise, why would you have shown me anything?”
She again averted her eyes. “I’m a messenger, not a sage.”
“Then what’s your message? I need your help, Abelia. Do the right thing.”
She spread her hands and looked into the gap between them as if searching for a speck of an answer in sifting sand. “You think I know right from wrong? I’ve already turned a man to salt today.”
Stoddard swept an arm toward the roses decorating his ancient wife’s grave. “Don’t worry, Abelia. If heaven casts you aside, I know an old man who might need a hand with his gardening.”
“Thank you.” Some life returned to her eyes. She reached a hand to Brewster’s forehead.
Before she touched him, he noticed the butterfly under her wrist. “I’ve seen that tattoo everywhere lately.”
Abelia’s smile faded. “I’m part of a sisterhood. We’re supposed to bring grace, but I’ve carried only death this day.”
She settled her palm on his flesh, and the world went black.
CHAPTER 33
Swept into 2012 Manhattan
Brewster struggled against the worst case of fog-brained jetlag he’d ever experienced. He wobbled on his feet and clutched a lamppost to keep from falling.
A wave of yellow taxis racing down the street quickened his pulse. He’d made it, right? The aroma of street-vendor hot dogs in a nearby stand sure screamed Manhattan.
A man dressed in a business suit and sneakers hurried by, nearly elbowing him into the traffic. “Watch where you’re going, creep,” the man said.
An icy wind clinched the deal. Early autumn had been unusually cold a year earlier. He and Carla had danced in the snow on Tug Hill.
The low rumble of a train sounded below. The station had to be nearby. He spun around. Sure enough, a stairway led down. A row of newspaper machines displayed the front pages of The Wall Street Journal, Daily News, and New York Post. They all showed the same date, October 23, 2012.
Did Romeo tremble like this before drinking the poison?
And where was Carla, down in the station or still approaching? A neon sign flashing the time and temperature from across the street didn’t do any good. The cops hadn’t said anything about Carla’s time of death.
Or had they?
The immediate area sure seemed empty. That businessman who elbowed him had been the only person on the sidewalk. He turned to a commotion a block or two down—emergency lights, a crowd of gawkers.
Barnes, the skinny cop, had mentioned a bus accident occurring when Carla died.
Brewster leapt to his feet and hurried down the stairs.
At the first landing, he saw Carla and Gabriella floating—not walking, floating!—hand in hand on the other side of the gates. They’d started down a second stairway.
“Wait!” He ran up to a turnstile and tried climbing over the bar. “Carla!”
“Hey!” A man’s voice came at him from off to the side. “Hold it right there, buddy!”
He turned to a uniformed conductor standing at a nearby cashier’s booth. “I’m with that woman!”
“Pay your fare or I’ll call the cops.” But the man barely moved. All bark and no bite, he seemed more interested in chatting with a pretty blonde through the bars of her cage than worrying about a misdemeanor. He muttered, “Must be another dumb tourist,” to the cashier in a loud enough voice to carry.
Brewster held his breath and reached into his pants pocket where his wallet should have been. Who knew whether anything he’d been carrying in the cemetery had come along for the ride through time? He found the thing, whispered thanks to Abelia, and ran to a token machine on the wall.
After three attempts to hurry a bill into a slow-motion slot, he managed to coax some tokens out of the machine. He raced back to the turnstile.
“Doing it right?” the man yelled.
A knee-buckling flash of insight nearly had him fumbling the tokens to the floor. The conductor and cashier stood as living proof the events in a Manhattan subway station on October 23, 2012, were fluid.
The homicide cops hadn’t mentioned any witnesses seeing him on the landing, only the operator of the train down below and the passenger of a second train passing through the station in the opposite direction. Certainly, anyone in the vicinity would have been interviewed. These two should have provided their accounts, and they wouldn’t have waited a year to do so—further proof he and Carla could rewrite the script however they wanted.
He whipped through the turnstile and ran down the stairs to the platform.
The love of his life stood weeping beyond the yellow safety line with her arms wrapped around herself.
“Carla!”
“Brewster?” Tears streamed down her