Once the front door was shut, he turned to her. “Find two Seekers with surveillance training and have them follow Dyer, without letting her notice them. I want to know where she goes and what she does, even if it’s just home to bed. Arrange for another shift of competent help to replace them in the morning.”

  The warden nodded and glided off. Sanford paced around the foyer for a few minutes, long enough to plausibly check his book and for the warden to bark her orders, and then returned to the gate. The long grasses on either side of him rippled as the unseen hounds paced him. The warden was with him, then, in a way. “10 am is acceptable,” he replied. “I am pleased that Mr Tillinghast agreed to an appointment.”

  She dimpled, delighted by his reply as she was by all things. “My employer tells me he was going to reach out to you anyway, and you simply beat him to it! He believes you have business interests that may occasionally overlap with his own, and he wishes to discuss how the two of you might best navigate any moments of friction that might consequently appear.”

  “How very thoughtful of him,” Sanford said. “I look forward to our rendezvous immensely.”

  “I’m sure the sentiment is returned,” Dyer said. “Shall we send a car for you?”

  “Just the address is fine,” Sanford said.

  Dyer was ready with a card, with the address printed right there, in black type. Sanford did his best to keep his face calm when he read the street name and number. The location was indeed in the Merchant District, in a storefront that Sanford knew to be empty and available to let… because it had once housed Huntress Fashions, the shop owned by his former Seeker Diana Stanley. Did Tillinghast know about Sanford’s personal connection to that address? He couldn’t possibly. Could he?

  Who was this man, and why had none of Sanford’s inquiries about Tillinghast among the loose occult brotherhood that spanned the Western world returned anything in the way of useful information?

  “I’ll take my leave of you, then, Mr Sanford,” Gloria said. “Sleep well and have the sweetest dreams.”

  Sanford looked at her for a long moment, then said, “The same to you, Miss Dyer.” He turned on his heel and returned to the Lodge, his mind boiling with orders, plans, stratagems, and contingencies.

  He was surprised to discover that, in addition to his apprehension, he also felt invigorated. How long had it been since he’d sparred with someone who might truly be his equal? A long time, and back then, being his equal was a lot easier.

  Tillinghast would learn the magnitude of the error he’d made by setting his sights on Sanford. When this business was done, perhaps Sanford would have a replica of Tillinghast Esoterica and Exotics constructed in one of the Lodge’s basements, to serve as a trophy.

  Chapter Eleven

  Stolen Moments

  Ruby yawned, leaning in the doorway of a closed shop in the Merchant District. She’d been ready to call it a night, maybe go draw a hot bath and then head to bed early, but no, Sanford had come stalking back into the Lodge after meeting Gloria and commanded her to go take a look at Diana Stanley’s old shop and see if there was any sign of habitation. Apparently Tillinghast wanted a meeting there in the morning, and Dyer claimed that was the location of his shop, which Ruby knew to be untrue… unless he’d changed locations again so soon. He’d need a deft and speedy moving crew, but he had money, and money could buy time. “If Tillinghast is there, alert me immediately,” Sanford had said.

  Ruby really hoped he wouldn’t be. She’d never get any sleep if Sanford decided to do a middle-of-the-night raid on the old man. Though an immediate and decisive conflict would end this situation, one way or another, and that would be nice, wouldn’t it? Ruby was already sick of maintaining divided loyalties, and keeping two sets of stories and motivations straight in her mind was going to get tiresome fast.

  She observed the dark shop across the street for a while, alert to any glimmer of light. Her friend Diana’s high-end clothing store, Huntress Fashions, had once occupied the bottom floor, but Diana had sold off her stock before she left town, and now the pretty picture window presented only nothingness. Diana’s old apartment was upstairs, and if this was Tillinghast’s new home base, he might be living up there, but those windows remained dark, too.

  Ruby took a circuitous route that led her to the alley behind the shop. Picking the lock on the back door was a breeze, and she was inside in moments. Last time she’d been in here, this was the back room for a bustling business, but now it was the lair of dust bunnies. She prowled through the rooms on the lower floor, the streetlights outside providing just enough illumination to allow her investigation, but there was nothing to find. Tillinghast hadn’t set up shop here. Nobody had. This was a place in waiting. It didn’t even remind Ruby of Diana, anymore, and that was sad. Ruby hadn’t even gotten a postcard from her in a while.

  She ghosted up the dark stairs, making her way by feel, and emerged into the small apartment above. Tillinghast wasn’t there, either. Nobody was. She checked the bedroom, bathroom, and small sitting room, and there was nothing in the place at all but an old wooden stool by the kitchen counter, which Diana probably hadn’t bothered to take with her and the landlord hadn’t bothered to remove.

  Ruby stood in the empty kitchen and gazed around at the hollow space where a person had once lived. She had… well, not fond memories of this place, but she had memories, anyway. She’d sat in that living room, when there were chairs in it, and conspired with her compatriots to rob Carl Sanford’s vault. And now she was working for Sanford. While also ostensibly working against him. She opened an empty cabinet and looked inside. “How do I get myself into these situations?” she asked aloud.

  “It’s a tough old world for us professional gals,” a voice said, and Ruby spun, ready to fight or flee, but then she recognized the voice. It was Gloria Dyer, suddenly sitting on the other side of the counter on that lonely stool, the white of her smile visible in the faint streetlight filtering in through the windows. She must have been in the bedroom, or lurking in the shadows.

  I’m getting rusty, Ruby thought. Normally she had a good sense for whether a property was occupied or not. She crossed her arms, feigning nonchalance. “What are you doing here, Gloria?”

  “A little advance preparation for tomorrow’s meeting with Mr Sanford, of course,” Gloria said. “I suppose that’s why you’re here, too.” She clucked her tongue. “Mr Tillinghast expected this, of course. He said you weren’t really on the level yet – that you weren’t a true double agent, but only pretending to be. You’ve got some residual professional loyalty to Mr Sanford. It’s understandable. My employer hasn’t actually paid you those vast riches he promised you yet, after all. You can’t buy someone without paying them. Would it help if I promised you he was good for the money? He’s paid me enough.”

  “I’m not loyal to Sanford,” Ruby said. “I’m loyal to me. I have to walk a careful line here, Gloria. You want me to spy on Sanford, and that means I need to stay close to him, and that means I have to play the good little underling. He sent me to find out if Tillinghast was here, so I came. But if Tillinghast had been here, I would have asked him – what do you want me to tell Sanford I found?”

  Gloria shook her head, a shadow of movement. “I can’t read minds, Ruby, but I can read people, and I’m not convinced. But that’s fine, really. I’m not the one who needs convincing.”

  “So how do I convince Tillinghast I’m on his side?” Especially because I’m not, particularly, she thought.

  “Tut, tut, as your Mr Sanford would say. You mis­understand, Ruby. You’re the one who needs to be convinced. To truly join us. To stand on the right side of the conflict to come. Money is a great motivator, but it can be fickle – there are so many ways to get paid, after all. So Mr Tillinghast has sent me to offer you something more… unique.” She slid a small, faintly glowing object across the counter.

  Ruby squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away, cold terror gripping her guts. “Please don’t do this. I’ll help. You don’t need to snare my mind like you did with Tick. I am on your side, I promise–”

  “Mr Tillinghast has no desire to ensorcel you,” Gloria said, her voice uncharacteristically stern. “As I believe he told you. You’re no good to him with your wits addled.”

  Gloria hadn’t been present for that conversation. Did Tillinghast tell her everything? If so, he was a more forthcoming employer than Carl Sanford.

  Gloria’s voice regained its customary warmth. “Just look, please. You’ll like this, Ruby. You’ll love this.”

  Ruby compromised with her fear by opening one eye, then opened both. “Oh. It’s just a watch.” That glow wasn’t some magical mind-snare, but a radium dial, the numerals and hands of the watch illuminated faintly green.

  “It’s a Gruen Guild Tank watch. Silver case, Swiss jewels, leather strap. A beautiful piece, isn’t it?” Dyer’s voice was nearly reverent.

  “Sure, but… Tillinghast thinks he can secure my undying loyalty with a watch? Even a nice watch? I’m not that cheap, Gloria. I’m honestly a little insulted.”

  “It’s not just a watch, dear. It’s a relic.”

  Ruby frowned. “What do you mean, a relic? It’s got a radium dial, so it can’t be more than, what, ten years old–”

  “It is, in fact, new this year,” Gloria said. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a relic. As you and Sanford use the term, relics are objects imbued with unusual properties that seem, to the mundane among you, to be magic. They are found in the ruins of ancient civilizations, because only ancient civilizations knew the trick of creating such things. But Mr Tillinghast knows those secrets, too. Every strange object with mysterious properties, discovered in the foundations of a fallen temple in a deep jungle cave, had to be brand new at some point, didn’t it? This, Ruby, is a relic of the future.” Gloria tapped the crystal of the watch with one fingernail.

  “So, what mysterious property does this watch have?” Ruby was curious despite herself. Tillinghast could really make such things? That was a lot more than Carl Sanford could do.

  “You mentioned a story you liked to Tick. Was it ‘The New Accelerator,’ by Herbert George Wells?”

  Gloria hadn’t been present for that conversation, either, and neither had Tillinghast. She’d known Tick was in thrall to the latter, but did Tillinghast’s underlings give him reports that thorough? Ruby would have sworn Tick was barely even listening to her. Or… could Tillinghast somehow see through the eyes of those he’d charmed, the way Sarah Van Shaw sometimes seemed to know what her hounds could see?

  “I recall,” was all Ruby said.

  “This is your New Accelerator.” Gloria picked up the watch. “Not a potion, but a relic. It tells the proper time, but if you twist this dial, and set the clock back, say, five minutes…” Gloria briefly blurred, and then vanished. Ruby gasped, and then someone tapped her on the shoulder. Ruby spun with a shriek, and Gloria was standing behind her, smiling, holding up the watch at eye level, its dial glowing. “Then you get to spend five minutes accelerated, while, for everyone else, only a single second passes. When the watch catches up to real time again, you re-enter the regular flow of chronology. You can only set the watch back an hour, at most. I don’t know why. But during that hour, everyone and everything around you are frozen in time. You can accomplish a great many things in a stolen hour, can’t you? You should let the watch rest between excursions. Mr Tillinghast says repeated uses too frequently will, how did he put it, ‘damage the springs.’” Gloria took Ruby’s hand, placed the watch in her palm, and folded her fingers closed. “Now you’ve got time. All the time you need.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Ruby stared down at the wonder in her hands. She’d held artifacts before, but those were all stolen property, en route to new owners, and none of them had any obvious use, besides making your skin crawl, or giving you a sick dizzy feeling if you stared at them too closely. This was a miracle, and it was hers? “It seems…” She strapped the watch onto her wrist and held it close to her face so she could see the workings. “I turn this dial here?”

  Gloria nodded, and Ruby twisted the knob, setting the watch back by five minutes.

  At first, she thought nothing had happened. Gloria was still standing there, attentive and solicitous… but then she realized the other woman wasn’t breathing anymore. “Gloria?” she said, but the woman didn’t respond, or blink, or move at all, however minutely.

  Ruby circled around her, but Gloria didn’t react. When she stopped moving, Ruby realized the room had become completely silent, apart from the ticking of the watch, which now seemed to toll as loud as church bells. She felt as if her ears were muffled with cotton. Was it true? A dizzying elation built in her. With a power like this, she could do… she could do anything!

  Ruby went downstairs and stepped out the back door, into the alleyway. She gazed at a brown leaf hovering suspended in midair, and that convinced her of the truth of the trick, more than anything else. She cast about and found a round pebble on the ground. Ruby picked up the stone, held it at eye level, and dropped it. But the pebble didn’t drop. When she opened her hand, it simply hung where she’d released it, suspended in space and time.

  She laughed in delight, and found more pebbles, hanging them in the air at various heights all around her, forming a spiral. This could be a new art form, she thought wildly.

  And then the sounds of the world returned, the wind roaring suddenly loud in her ears, and the pebbles she’d suspended all fell and hit the ground with a rat-a-tat clatter. She started to wind the watch back again, but then stopped herself. She didn’t want to damage the springs. This was a miracle, and miracles should be respected.

  She went back inside, up the stairs, to find Gloria seated at the counter again. “How long did you spend in between?” the woman asked.

  Ruby was out of breath, though she’d scarcely exerted herself. Her mind was awhirl with possibilities. “Just five minutes. To test it out.”

  “You should wait a while before using it again,” Gloria said. “Especially since I just stole a few moments, too. Mr Tillinghast says overuse can wear down the springs… though I doubt they’re literally springs… and it’s best to let the mechanism rest. Give it eight hours or so between uses, and it should remain functional indefinitely. Otherwise, he provides no guarantees. He hopes the watch, and all those stolen moments, will give you joy.” Gloria paused. “He also hopes, and he isn’t usually this blunt, that the watch will buy your loyalty.”

  Ruby stared at the glowing hands of the watch. With something like this, the things she could do – she could clean out jewelry stores, she could rob banks! Such inelegant jobs weren’t very interesting, but they could provide her with the funds to give her true freedom.

  “And lest you see this watch as a ticket out of town and into a whole new life,” Gloria said, as if she could read Ruby’s mind, “Mr Tillinghast says to remind you that what he gives, he can also take away.”

  Ah. Of course. You wouldn’t give someone a tool – potentially a weapon – this powerful unless you could exert some level of control over it, and, thus, over the wielder. “It’s a transaction, then,” Ruby said levelly. “I serve Tillinghast, and I get…”

  “Time,” Gloria said. “All the time you need.”

  What had Sanford ever done for Ruby, anyway? Certainly nothing this good. He saved your life, a treacherous voice whispered. He forgave your trespasses against him. He offered you a partnership. No. He’d used her, and allowed her to use him in return, when they had a common goal – that was all. Tillinghast was probably a monster, but wasn’t Sanford a monster, too? Why should she care which monster was in charge? At least Tillinghast shared his magical relics instead of hoarding them away in a vault, to brood over in solitude.

  A vivid sense memory rose up in her mind: the stink of the swamps, the flicker of torches moving through the trees on all sides, the buzzing clouds of mosquitoes, the ground squelching underfoot as she fled with that Horror In Clay clutched to her chest. That was what happened last time she accepted a commission from Tillinghast. But… this was different, wasn’t it? She was in Arkham, a city she knew well, not a cult-ridden swamp in a lightless place far from her comfort zone. And this time… oh, this time, the reward made the risks worthwhile.

  “Tell Mr Tillinghast I accept his offer,” Ruby said.

  “He never doubted for a moment you would.” Gloria rose from the stool. “Tell Carl Sanford that the shop and the apartment were empty when you arrived. It’s not even a lie. Isn’t it nice when you can get through the day without telling any lies at all?” She gave a little wave and disappeared down the stairs.

  Ruby stared at the watch. Eight hours. Just eight more hours until she could feel that rush of power again. And she’d stay in the world between the moments a lot longer than five minutes, next time.

  •••

  Altman was doing the same old bit again: sitting in the dark in an armchair in Gloria Dyer’s tastefully appointed living room, a kukri unsheathed across his lap.

  He hadn’t been there all that long when the front door opened, and the woman came home. “Hello, Mr Altman!” she called, before the door was even shut behind her. “I’m going to make some coffee. Would you like some?” The light in the kitchen came on. He could see Gloria, across the breakfast bar that divided the kitchen from the living room, bustling about.

  Her total lack of surprise rather spoils the effect, doesn’t it? Altman reached over and clicked on the lamp beside the chair anyway, illuminating himself, in all his considerable menace. Gloria didn’t even look over at him.

  Altman decided to give in gracefully. “Coffee would be nice.” He rose and went to the breakfast bar, setting down his curved knife with a decisive clank before taking a seat on one of her padded, high-backed stools.