Ripping Time

Even if it meant breaking up-time laws to do so.

By the time Skeeter arrived at the aerie, Bull Morgan's glass-walled office was packed, standing room only. And that was without the howling mob of reporters trying to get past security to the elevator and stairs that led up to the station manager's ceiling-level office. The elevator had been crowded, too, with ‘eighty-sixers responding to the emergency call for search teams. Co

Dr. Shahdi Feroz, Skeeter knew, was not just a world-renowned Ripperologist, she was also the team's cult-phenomena expert. She had made a life's study of criminal cults and intended to research first-hand Victorian London's teeming subculture of spiritualists, occult worshipers, Celtic-revivalists, magic practitioners, and the city's numerous flourishing, quasi-religious cult groups. It had led her to support some rather unusual ideas about the Ripper murders. What she knew about down-time occult groups made for a terrifying parallel to what Skeeter knew of up-time cults. He'd seen his share of them in New York. And over the past few years, the new ones popping up like malignant mushrooms made those older ones look positively apple-pie ordinary. Which was doubtless why Bull Morgan had personally requested her presence at this meeting. Shahdi Feroz, as elegant and composed as a Persian queen, dark hair upswept in a mass of thick, raven's-wing waves, glanced at Skeeter, evidently aware of his intent scrutiny, and started to speak—

And the elevator doors slid open onto pandemonium.

Shahdi Feroz turned aside at once, stepping out of the elevator to make room for the others. She glanced over at A

"I didn't expect quite so many people to be here." Her speech was rich and fluid. Skeeter, fascinated by the rising and falling inflections of her exotic voice, managed to locate a space that hid him from most people's view.

A

When the weapons instructor glanced around, her gaze paused on Skeeter. The look in A

He set his jaw and wished to hell Bull would get this meeting underway. He needed to be down on Commons, searching. He'd only come to this meeting because he was not, by God, going to let them leave him out of whatever decisions were made on where and how to search for her. A door near the back of Bull's office opened and Ronisha Azzan, the deputy station manager, appeared, looking worried. She said something to Bull, too low for Skeeter to overhear. Bull ground his teeth over the stubby end of an unlit cigar, then spat debris into an ornate brass spittoon strategically positioned on one corner of his desk. Margo arrived a moment later via the elevator, breathless, her green eyes clouded with fear. She spotted A

Skeeter knew a moment of fear almost as deep as when Ianira had vanished right in front of him. Then reason reasserted itself, helped by the white-knuckled hands he used to push back heavy locks of hair sticking to his damp brow. Marcus would be with other Found Ones, searching, of course, there was no reason to panic, no up-timer on station knew the back routes the way the down-timers did, somebody had obviously got to him and maybe even told him they'd seen her somewhere...

Station alarms screamed to life again.

Fear tightened down once more, driving daggers through Skeeter's nerves. He very nearly pulled out two fistfuls of his own hair. Skeeter clenched his jaw and made himself wait, while sweat prickled out over his entire torso. Bull Morgan snatched the security phone off his desk and shouted, "What the hell is it now?"

Whatever was said on the other end, Bull's florid face actually lost color. The unlit cigar he chewed went deathly still. Then he spat out the cigar with a furious curse and snarled, "Turn this station upside down, dammit, but find them! And I want every construction worker in this goddamned station locked up on suspicion of attempted murder, do you hear me, Benson? Do it! Ronisha!" The phone didn't quite bend when he slammed the receiver back down, but a crack appeared in the plastic casing.

The deputy station manager, African-patterned silks swirling around her tall figure, reappeared from the back office, talking urgently to someone via squawky. She was snarling, "I don't care who you have to slap in the brig! Control that mess or find yourself another job! Yes?" she asked, turning her attention to Bull.

"Get down to the war room! Coordinate the search from down there. Have Benson's security teams report directly to you there. We've got another helluva mess breaking loose."

Ronisha fled down the back stairs, squawky in hand. La-La Land's station manager faced the expectant hush from the crowd in his office. The silence in the glass-walled office was as unbearable as the sound of fingernails on a blackboard.

Bull said heavily, "There's been a shooting at the day care center. Two construction workers messily dead, dozens of children in hysterics. Marcus and his little girls vanished in the middle of the shooting." Nausea bit Skeeter's throat. He forced himself not to bolt for the elevator, forced himself to wait, to hear the rest of it. "A couple of Scheherazade construction workers were trying to take his daughters out at gunpoint when Marcus showed up with someone Harriet didn't recognize. Whoever it was, they shot both construction workers dead and took Marcus and the girls out of there." Bull craned to peer through the crowd of white-faced, furious residents. "Is Dr. Feroz here yet?"

Shahdi Feroz pushed through the throng to the front of Bull's office. "Yes, Mr. Morgan, I am here. How may I help?"