Shuteye for the Timebroker Read Free Page A

prison. The gas seeped out, and I came to, my old self. With my sword, I gradually chipped away this old mortar and made my escape. If luck be with me, that bastard Goodnight knows nothing of my escape, and I’ll soon have my revenge.”
    Talk of taking revenge on the powerful Goodnight, still living as one of Blackwood Beach’s most eminent citizens, sent gooseflesh crawling up Clayton’s wet back, and he sought to change the topic.
    “Uh, your visonary powers—do you still have them?”
    Captain Jill scowled fiercely. “Blast it, no! They’ve vanished with the gas. A handy talent those would have been, now that I’m free! Luckily, I remembered watching some men hide that crate of whiskey not far from me some sixty years ago—during a time called Prohibition, I wot—and I knew where to head as soon as I was free. All those years built a powerful thirst, my lad.” Captain Jill passed a silky tongue over her lips. “As well as certain other yearnings.”
    Nervously, Clayton replied, “Well, yes, I’m sure that’s true. We’ll see about attending to those when we get you back up to the surface and make you presentable.”
    “Who says I’m following you back up aboveground?” Captain Jill demanded.
    “I naturally assumed—”
    “You’ve assumed wrong, my fine fellow. Your modern world makes me nervous, at least for the nonce. I’ve everything I need down here. Whiskey, song—and now you.”
    While she talked, Captain Jill had managed to inch closer without Clayton’s noticing. Now she was within a foot of him. Realizing this with a start, he began to back away.
    “Uh, that’s very flattering, Miss Innerarity, but I’m afraid I have no intention of staying. I have duties up above, a saintly old grandmother to attend to—”
    “Grandmother be damned!” Captain Jill yelled. “I’ve got blue fog in my veins that I’ve got to work off. It’s left me cold after that long sleep, and I need some mortal warmth!”
    Captain Jill extended one slim finger to touch the back of Clayton’s hand. A preternatural bolt of ice shot up his arm, and he hastily jerked back.
    “I’m sure a doctor can cure that condition better than me,” Clayton argued. “Perhaps a day in the sun would work wonders—”
    “I’ll pick the nostrum for what ails me, you snivelling whelp, and it’ll be a cure that’s never failed me yet!”
    With this, Captain Jill leaped upon Clayton with alarming speed. Her embrace transmitted a fearsome chill through his nightshirt and throughout his entire body. He felt her breasts as two soft mounds of snow tipped with nubby little stalagmites. (Or was that stalactites? he wondered absurdly. He could never keep the two straight. He supposed it depended on whether she was lying on her back or on her stomach.)
    Clayton’s mind began to fail under the onslaught of the cold radiated by Captain Jill, who now wrapped one leg around one of his and toppled him to the ground. Much to his alarm, he detected certain umistakable stirrings below his waist, as her actions combined with the supernatural chill began to rouse him to an icy erectness.
    Before blanking out, Clayton had time to wonder if “Roger me silly, you varlet!” meant what he suspected it did.
     
    * * *
     
    Why was he thinking of John Keats? Surely there were more pressing matters to fill his mind as he lay there on the damp, packed earth of the tunnel floor. Such as finding the power to get to his feet.
    Ah, that was why thoughts of Keats had occurred to him. Those lines in “La Belle Dame sans Merci”: “And I awoke, and found me here / On the cold hill’s side.” Certain parallels were undeniable. Was there any record of how the knight in that poem had dealt with the morning after?
    Summoning energy from previously unplumbed depths, Clayton woozily got to his feet. His flashlight was sending out a yellow beam indicative of drained batteries. Captain Jill was nowhere to be seen.
    Somehow Clayton made it back to the ladder