Far Edge of Darkness

Gradually, shock wore off, leaving her in the grip of mere pain and terror. Sibyl held herself and wept. She would cheerfully have killed any number of people to obtain a Tylenol-3 and a bucket of lukewarm water. She sobbed curses at Publius Bericus, at Tony Bartlett, at the man she had never seen, the man who had ordered this done to her: Jésus Carreras.

Occasional earthquakes, sharp, violent, rocked floor and walls. The villa groaned and trembled on its foundations. Each time the earth shook, Sibyl covered her head with both arms and waited for the roof to fall in on her. Eventually, fear of being buried alive—again—drove Sibyl to explore her prison. There had to be a way out!

But there wasn't.

There were no windows and the bar on the door was too strong. She discovered this only after bruising one shoulder. Sibyl concluded that either movie heroes were a lot stronger than she was, or they bashed open specially constructed doors. There wasn't a single piece of furniture in the empty room she could use as a battering ram, either.

So she sat on the floor in one corner and wondered how far Charlie would get before she died. Her mind moved in aimless circles. Part of her wondered why, exactly, people were being dumped back in time to die. The energy cost alone must be staggering. Surely there were cheaper, easier ways to dispose of witnesses? Of course, God knew where Jimmy Hoffa had ended up; probably in a sausage grinder somewhere. Or the foundation of a building. Organized crime had a way of disposing of folks where no one would think of looking.

Charlie's guess had been that all of this was to protect the secret of time travel itself. In the hands of the mafia... If you refused to dicker, you simply ceased to exist. Or maybe your family did. Talk about a big stick. But they didn't seem to be using it that way. Of course, neither she nor Charlie had been in on the palavers of the high muckety-mucks.

Who knew what they were really up to or how many poor souls had been disposed of already. Had they possessed the thing long enough to be up to anything substantial? Or were they still just feeling their way around, playing with it, seeing what could be done? Tony's comments about his trips suggested the latter, but she couldn't be sure and she needed to be.

And just who was the "old man" for whom Tony had secured the manuscripts, anyway? Not Carreras, Tony's brother-in-law—that much, at least, had been easy to see—but someone else, someone more powerful than Jésus Carreras. Someone Charlie evidently hadn't known about. She groaned and thumped her forehead with folded hands. She just didn't have enough information. "So what else is new?" Not knowing was the story of her life. Why should this be an exception?

Sibyl straightened her back cautiously and leaned her head against the wall. "All right, Sib, try to think this one through. We're not getting anywhere at this rate." She took a deep breath and calmed her thoughts.

The cost ratio still bothered her. If the only thing Carreras was using time travel for was witness disposition and artifact acquisition, he was a fool. Either he didn't understand what he had and how it worked, or simply didn't care.

She shivered despite the heat.

Somehow, she didn't buy that.

How in the world had he gotten hold of it in the first place? Who had developed it? Government research? A private corporation? University researchers? Tony had said something about Army drugs. The military, then? She sighed. It didn't matter nearly as much where he'd gotten it, as what he was doing with it now that he had it. If she were a mafia crime boss, what would she do with the ability to travel in time?

Sibyl didn't like any of the answers she came up with.

A slave finally came for her. When she emerged from her stuffy little prison, Sibyl gratefully breathed in cooler air, then coughed. Ash stung her nostrils and throat. When they passed the open doorway to the garden, the lack of daylight alarmed her. Darkness had settled deceptively soft violet wings across Herculaneum. Vesuvius still roared ominously in the distance.

"What hour is it?" she asked the slave, still peering into the dark skies visible above the open garden.

"It is past the eleventh hour," the woman replied, with a touch of surprise, "and nears the twelfth."

Sibyl gulped. Nearly the twelfth hour of daylight? The time was well past di

The slave woman who had unlocked Sibyl's door peered uneasily toward the sky. The evening wind was brisk. It ruffled Sibyl's hair even under the shelter of the portico, but it wasn't strong enough to carry away the entire ashfall. Like hot snow, volcanic debris whipped around in eddies and evil little dust devils, then settled silently onto the garden and the baked clay roof tiles. The air smelled like one of Dante's Circles.

When a stray gust blew ash into their faces, Sibyl coughed and wiped streaming tears.

"It has been dark like this for hours," the slave woman whispered fearfully. She glanced toward Sibyl. "You were at the villa rustica when the mountain blew up?"

"Yes." The answer came out a little thickly.

"Then you and Master are very lucky. The wagon he ordered to follow his carriage has not arrived."

That probably had more to do with the slaves bolting rather than the volcano. Talk about a golden chance to run for it... .

"I am to help you bathe, Aelia," the slave said, forcibly tearing her gaze away from the black skies. Her voice trembled nearly as violently as the floor. "The Master wishes to see you again tonight."

Sibyl stumbled and braced herself against the wall. No... She couldn't endure another rape. She just couldn't. And if she complied with Bericus' orders tonight, she was lost.

"Please, tell me," she whispered, "has a soldier come to this house, looking for me?"

"A soldier? No, girl. Why would a soldier be looking for you?"

Rather than answer, Sibyl asked another question. "Has... has Master found his other new slave? Has Rufus the Gladiator been brought to this house today?"

The woman stared at her as though she'd taken complete leave of her senses. "No. There's been no one brought in today except you."

Thank God... .

Sibyl drew a quick breath for courage, then slugged the woman as hard as she could. The woman staggered back with a dazed cry of pain. Sibyl shoved her into the dark little room and dropped the bar in place. For long moments, Sibyl leaned against the closed door, shocked—horrified—at what she'd just done. Her hand ached, the knuckles abraded and swollen. I'm sorry, really, I'm sorry, but there was nothing else I could have done. The poor slave woman would die anyway, in just a few hours.

Sibyl shoved off and ran down the portico, heading for the "front" of the house where she knew of a way out through the kitchens. I know this house, its layout. I can get out of here....

Voices sent her trembling into the shadows.

Bericus...

He was arguing violently with a shrill-voiced woman.

"I tell you, Lucretia, I will hear no more of this nonsense! Either shut up and go to bed, or by Attis, I will cut that tongue out of your head!"

"Try it and my brother will make an Attis of you! Mother Cybele curse the day I agreed to marry you!"

They were between her and the kitchens. Bericus' wife was tiny, barely five feet tall, thin and frazzled as a dinette waitress. Her hair stuck out in all directions from a disastrous coif. She was not a pretty woman, although, once, she might have been.