The Forever Man (W.A.R.P. 3)

These statements were as perplexing as the first had been, and Woulfe suspected that perhaps Isles had taken a drop of strong spirits to calm his nerves.

‘He took that bullet for me,’ continued Isles. ‘Put himself in harm’s way, the stupid lug. Now he’s one hundred per cent dog and I gotta live with that. Talk about selfish.’ Then Isles hugged the animal close, and the dog nuzzled into him and licked his face, like a normal dog would. ‘Good boy, Pointer,’ said Isles. ‘Everything’s gonna be OK. We’re partners forever, right?’

Woulfe was touched. ‘And you, Master Isles? Would you accompany me to my house? My wife is a most excellent nurse.’

Isles remembered his own injury and winced. ‘You think she’d come down here, Jerry? I’m a little weak at the knees right now. And, anyways, I imagine I’m gonna be locked up for quite a while after this night’s work.’

Woulfe smiled at Jerry, a diminutive of Jeronimo, which his wife had begun to use in the privacy of their home.

‘There will be no imprisonment for you, good Master Isles. Not if I have any say in the matter. We all saw what the supposed Witchfinder brought down upon our town. Every man heard his threats. If you are to be locked away, then so am I.’ Woulfe’s face was as stony as the gargoyles he laboured on. ‘And I am not about to be locked away, Master Isles.’

Isles nodded. ‘Yeah, you got the stuff. I pity the constable who messes with you right now, Jerry.’

A thought struck Jeronimo Woulfe. ‘As a matter of fact, Master Isles, Mandrake is in dire need of a constable at this time.’

Isles almost laughed.

Damn, he thought. They want me to be sheriff.

And it actually did come to pass that Fairbrother Isles became constable of Mandrake’s Groan, mostly due to the fact that Jeronimo Woulfe insisted upon it, on the condition that Isles forsook alcohol from the day he was sworn in and that he train the militia in the weird methods of combat he’d used to render most of them useless. These matters were agreed upon and Fairbrother Isles duly became the first African law official in all England, a fact which met with some resistance from certain sections of the community. But these were the same people who passed their days feverishly questing for matters to object to and they were largely ignored or, as Isles himself put it in memory of the little-mourned constable: de-cried.

In fact, Isles’s appointment proved most fortuitous for the town. He schooled the militia in the arts of close combat, the use of natural camouflage and siege warfare, thus creating a fighting unit the like of which had never been seen and would not be seen again for centuries to come. It was under Isles’s command that Mandrake survived the second civil war, in spite of raids from Parliamentarians, Royalists and organized brigands, all of which amounted to the same thing essentially.

Almost always at Isles’s side was his faithful hound, Pointer. When not at his master’s flank, he was ranging ahead checking for hostiles, and people swore the hound had more intelligence about him than any other dog and perhaps some humans.

Both dog and master lived long lives. In the hound’s case, far beyond the span of a normal dog, and when they died it was within a week of each other. When Pointer’s extraordinary longevity eventually came to an end, it was said that Constable Isles died of a broken heart.

Fairbrother Isles’s final request was that he be buried beside his beloved pet, but not in the same coffin – as he put it in his strange manner of speaking: That would be plain weird, and also if Donnie gets the power of speech back in the afterlife then I’m gonna have to listen to his griping for all eternity.

The request was honoured. And, in memory of the pair’s service to East Anglia, the militia’s name was changed to the Fair Brothers and a man who proved himself most worthy to lead was said to be on point.

The town stocks continued to be called the Fairbrothers, though, for that was how the constable himself had referred to them all his life – as a reminder.

Surfer Chicks Rolling in Cali

Riley woke up in the wormhole, which was unusual. Maybe ‘unusual’ is the wrong word, because nothing is usual about the wormhole when you are not part of the wormhole. No two trips are the same. No destination is guaranteed; there will definitely be changes to the schedule; and things are apt to arrive in a different condition from how they left the station. Sometimes in a different state altogether. Solids become liquids, liquids become gases and monkeys become men. If Charles Darwin had travelled through the inter-dimension once or twice, his theory of evolution might have upset the Creationists a lot more than it already did.

So while nothing could be fairly called unusual when everything was unusual, what Riley found noteworthy was that he seemed to be sitting on the stage of the Orient Theatre with Chevie perched beside him. He was clad in full show get-up, complete with top hat and cloak, while Chevie was wearing her FBI jumpsuit – and neither of them seemed to be on fire, which was a huge relief.

Riley knew he was in the wormhole and not, in fact, in nineteenth-century London because Chevie had made a few mistakes in her vision of it. Still, it wasn’t bad for someone who’d only been in the Orient a couple of times.

Chevie spotted him glancing around. ‘ OK, smart guy, where did I go wrong?’

Riley pointed at the balcony. ‘There are only four rows up top, and we ain’t got no golden cherubs as far as I remember it.’

Chevie sighed. ‘There’s no pleasing some people.’

‘Not too shabby, though, Miss Chevron. Not too shabby.’

‘Oh, it’s Miss Chevron now, is it? Very formal all of a sudden.’

Riley blushed. ‘I’m guessing you know why. Being as we’re communicating through our minds and whatnot.’

Chevie blushed herself, which was a first. ‘I do know, Riley, but there’s no need to go all Your Majesty this and Your Highness that. Just plain Chevie will do. That’s how surfer chicks roll in Cali.’

Surfer chicks rolling in Cali?

Probably FBI code, Riley reckoned.

‘Fair enough. Chevie it is. How about Miss Chevie? A compromise?’

‘So long as I don’t have to call you Master Riley.’

‘No. I ain’t no Master nothing.’

‘This is true. What you are is the Great Savano.’

Riley scratched his head. ‘I dunno about that. I got a few tricks up my sleeve, I suppose.’

Chevie swung one knee on to the stage so she could face him. ‘You came through fire for me, Riley. We kissed in the flames. A girl doesn’t forget something like that.’

‘We save each other, Chevie. And I’m still behind in those ledgers,’ said Riley. ‘It’s four–two by my count.’

‘Five–two,’ said Chevie. ‘Not that anyone’s keeping score.’

Riley took a deep breath. ‘I saw us, Miss Chevie. The last time we came through. I saw us together. I felt we could be happy. I don’t care about your cat’s eyes, if that’s what you’re worried about. And, after all we’ve been through, the two years between us

don’t seem so much.’

‘No,’ admitted Chevie. ‘What’s two years to a couple of time travellers? A drop in the ocean.’

‘So we can be together, you think? A courting couple, as they say?’

Chevie frowned. A bead of sweat ran down her cheek and the Orient’s balcony shimmered and disappeared.

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘What could be simpler?’ protested Riley. ‘It’s the simplest question of all. And the oldest.’

‘Things are different now. I’m different. Look at me, creating bubbles in the wormhole just so we can talk. This isn’t easy, you know, and I don’t know how long I can hold it.’

‘You’ve got what Garrick had,’ Riley realized.

‘Yeah, except more so. I was a blank slate the last time I went in, so the wormhole filled me with quantum foam. I understand the beast.’

‘It is a great pity you didn’t happen upon this knowledge earlier in proceedings,’ said Riley. ‘You could have saved us both some bother.’

‘Yeah, tell me about it, but between nearly dying and getting eye injections, and, oh, being burned alive, I didn’t have too much time for navel-gazing.’

‘Navel-gazing being introspection, I am guessing.’

Chevie nodded. ‘Riley, I’m different now. There are things I can do.’

‘What things?’ demanded Riley. ‘I should be told.’

‘Important things,’ said Chevie. ‘I can send you to where you need to be. Where you’ve always wanted to be. And I can fix what I never could.’