Aubrey/Biebe/Skinner/Thorne:  A Roman Holiday

(with a little of someone else)

The direct continuation of Touching the Flame

By Atonia Walpole

(picture creations used also by Atonia)

Terry could barely hold the phone in his hand. His voice seemed to be caught somewhere deep in his throat. “I said…she’s gone.”

Max sat down at his desk. “Gone as in…?”

“Missing, mate, for six hours. We were near the Colosseum. I left her to go get her a bottle of water not ten feet away and when I turned she was gone. I went to the police and they’re doing what they can but…Max…”

“Hold it together, Terry. Where are you now?”

“Almost back at the hotel. I…I don’t know what else to do. I searched myself everywhere. I thought she might have stepped off to have a look.”

“I’ll go straight to the airport and get a flight. I’m so sorry, Terry. I knew something was wrong before you called. I’ll call John and send a summons to Jack. That’s all I can do right now, but we’re on our way.”

“Yeah, I’m not going anywhere else tonight.”

“I’ll call and let you know when to expect us. Just…my God….”

“I know. Thanks, Max.” Terry folded his phone and wearily opened the door to his hotel.

“What’s wrong, Max?” Connie asked as Max came running into the bedroom throwing clothes in a bag.

“Toni’s missing in Rome. Terry just called.”

“Missing…how?”

“I don’t know. She just disappeared. She’s been missing for six hours. You can imagine what state Terry’s in.”

“Yes, I can. What can I do, Max?”

“Um, call the airlines and get me on a flight to Rome.” Max went into the bathroom looking for his toiletry bag.

His phone rang while he was digging under the vanity. “John, Toni’s missing. I just talked to Terry. She evidently disappeared about six hours ago. He’s called the police in.”

“Oh, shit! Well, I called because I knew something was up. I tried to call Terry but his phone was busy.”

“He was talking to me. I’m packing, John, and intend to be on the next flight out.”

“I’ll get there as soon as I can, Max. Let Terry know, okay?”

“Will do. See you in Rome, John.”

“You’re going where?” Donna ran up the stairs after John.

“I said I’m going to Rome, as in Italy. Donna, Toni’s missing. Terry just called Max and said she’s been gone for six hours. He’s got the police looking for her now.” John pulled a bag out of the closet and began throwing clothes in it.

“Oh, no! Poor Terry. Have you got a plane ticket yet?”

“No, would you call and see when I can get out? Check Bangor and Portland.” John ran his hand through his hair trying to think what he would need and headed for the closet.

Jack was off the coast of Gibraltar. He’d had a strange feeling for some time and couldn’t place the cause but it bothered him and caused him to bark his orders a little more loudly than usual. It was only later that he knew he’d been summoned again. Although no one had told him where to go or who was in trouble, he knew it was Rome and he also knew it was Toni. He always knew where she was but this time it gave him a bit of a problem. Something wasn’t right.

He went down in his cabin and spread out his map. They would have to go through the Straits of Gibraltar. He plotted his course and came back on deck and gave Bonden the coordinates.  It would be a dangerous voyage since Spain and France were fighting over Italy.

Terry spent a fitful night at the hotel. Showered and dressed he was at the police station early in the morning. They could tell him nothing. There had been no sign of her anywhere, no witnesses to an abduction, but perhaps someone would come forth. Terry doubted that. It was a waiting game now. Would there be contact for a ransom? The only thing he could do was to go back to his hotel and wait

Waiting was not something he could handle right now. This wasn’t a client…this was his wife. He called Dino and told him what had happened.

“I’m on my way, Tio.”

“No, wait…wait until we hear something, Dino. You’re half a world away.”

“Fuck that! I’m looking for a seat outta here as we speak. I got nothing going on right now anyway.”

“Right. Well, you know where I am.”

“See ya soon, Tio. Keep that chin up.”

“Yeah…sure, mate.” That was the one thing he couldn’t do.

A knock on his door turned out to be Max.

“Terry.” Max hugged him. “No word?”

“No…nothing.” Terry closed the door. “When did you get here?”

“Sometime in the night. I forget now. I had a room booked here so I just crashed for awhile. You obviously haven’t slept.”

“No.”

“Haven’t eaten either I assume.”  Max called room service and ordered breakfast for two. “John’s on his way. He got a flight out of Portland last night and Jack’s been summoned. I can’t imagine that no one saw anything.”

“You know how people are. They don’t want to get involved. They’d rather turn their head and pretend they saw nothing. You’d never find the people that were in the area anyway. Most of them were tourists. She was in the middle of a crowd of people. Somebody knows something.” He sat down with his head in his hands.

“So what are you doing in Rome in the first place?” Max found a chair and sat down.

“It was a holiday for the two of us, a week’s getaway. We’d been talking about taking a trip somewhere and one day Italy came up. I’ve never been in Rome…I was in Milan once for a brief period.” He ran his hand over his face. “I’ve called Wyatt. He’s checking with our people in this area. There hasn’t been an abduction here for some time, at least not one we’ve been involved with.  So I don’t know…if it’s personal or…what the fuck it is.”

“All my instincts tell me she’s here in Rome but it’s muddied somewhat. I can’t think what that could mean.”

“I’m the same…she’s here somewhere.”

Breakfast arrived and Max persuaded Terry to eat a little something. He drank a pot of tea but his appetite was gone…like his wife.

Part 2:

John arrived around three that afternoon and got a ride to the hotel. Max and Terry were in the lobby and John dropped his bags and hugged Terry. “You okay…well, of course you’re not. I don’t guess…?”

Terry shook his head. “We’ve just come from the police again…nothing.”

John went over and checked himself in then Terry and Max went up with him to his room. “I’m just two doors down, John, and Terry’s on the floor above,” Max said.

“I don’t guess Jack’s made it yet?”

“No way of knowing where he is but we both summoned him so he knows something’s up.”

“That makes three of us, Max. I summoned him, too.” John tossed his bags on the luggage rack. “So somebody tell me what the cops are doing?”

Terry repeated what he’d been told at the station. “So basically they have nothing to go on. They're just making inquiries.”

“How long was she out of your sight, Terry?” John asked.

“Maybe five minutes, if that. I had to queue for a bottle of water.”

“Let’s go to wherever you were,” John suggested.

“Beats sitting here in the hotel. The police have both our phone numbers now,” Max said.

“We were just beyond that arch there. A little snacks stand is there and I left her just the other side of the road and walked across. I was here and I turned right after I bought the water and she was gone. So I walked all up and down this road, calling her and even stopping people and asking if they’d seen her.”

“What was she wearing?”

“She had on a light blue skirt. It was full and came down below her knees, a white sweater, long-sleeved, and a scarf she bought at some little boutique yesterday morning. It was blue and gold, I think. Long...it hung below her waist. She had her bag, a canvas thing with leather straps and navy espadrilles.”

“What’s that…espadrilles?” John asked.

“Shoes,” Max answered.

“She had her sunglasses on top of her head like she does, you know.” Terry bit his lip.

“Anything changed around here…same vendors?”

“Ah, yes, I think so. I don’t know if the same people are working. I didn’t pay attention.”

John went over and questioned the vendor where Terry bought his water then walked down the road to the next one and questioned them. He was about to walk away when one girl stopped him. She’d been working the concession the day before.

“There was the smoke. I don’t know, maybe it was a bike or something, but I don’t see it.”

“What do you mean smoke, like something on fire?” That would have been noticed he knew.

“No, no fire, just smoke-like you know…em, like gray smoke. You couldn’t see through it but then it was gone. Just like that…it was gone. I don’t know how long it was there. I just look up and see and then it was gone. I think like a smoke machine, you know, like fog.”

John turned and walked back and told Max and Terry what she’d said.

“If Jack has her…I swear I will…” Max said.

“Fog?” Terry asked.

“That’s what she said. There one minute and gone the next. Real thick; she couldn’t see through it.”

“I didn’t see any fog or smoke. There was nothing…”

“I don’t think Jack would do something like that, Max,” John said.

“Could have been a smoke screen of some sort, something to obscure an abduction, but even then somebody would have seen it besides this vendor.”

“She said maybe it could have been a bike. I guess she was talking about exhaust. Have to be pretty bad to blot out a bike and you would have been coughing and noticed that.”

“There was no bike and I didn’t see any fog. No…Jack wouldn’t, he wouldn’t.”

“The police never mentioned fog, did they?” Max asked.

“No, this is the first I’ve heard of anything like fog.”

“Maybe we should go tell the local cops about it, something they could be asking about.”

“Yeah, John, we should. You might think of something else to ask them about, too.” Terry put his hand on John’s shoulder and patted him. They walked to the police station with another little bit of information.

Aside from the fog there was no new information and so they left and walked back toward the hotel, stopping at an outdoor café for a bite to eat.

“Just order him whatever you’re ordering for yourself. He’ll eat something.” John looked across the little table at Terry, who said he didn’t want anything.

Max ordered their lunch and sipped his beer. “This fog thing worries me. You know what it has signified in the past. A magic window, but to where?”

“Can she call up a window?” John asked.

“I don’t think so. She never has, never mentioned such a thing,” Terry answered

“The only one  I know of who can do that is Jack, and why he would I have no idea,” Max said, “but he’s our best bet.”

“I just can’t see him doing this, I can’t. He swore he would never summon her again.”

“Well, he’s been summoned three times, Terry, so he has to come. I just hope he wasn’t in South America somewhere or out on those Galapagos  Islands.” John sat back while his food was put in front of him.

“Whatever happened to his Blackberry?” Max asked.

“I guess he still has it. I don’t know. I haven’t tried it,” Terry said.

“Max, you’ve got one send him a howler.”

“A what?”

John grinned. “Ah, something from a movie we took the kids to see.”

Max pulled out his phone and sent a message to Jack. “Whether he gets it or not, it’s done. I just told him Toni was missing in Rome. Just so he knows we know.”

“He probably already knows, Max. He always knows where she is.” Terry picked at his food.

Part 3:

Jack, however, was not looking for his Blackberry. He was engaged in battle with a French ship. He’d been working his way along the coast of Africa and spotted the ship. He gave chase and the battle was in full force. All thoughts of summons or anything else went by the wayside when he was called to duty. The battle had begun at daybreak and took up most of the day.

He was now in the Tyrrhenian Sea and having taken the ship a prize he put off a crew and sent her back to Gibraltar.  The adrenalin was wearing off now and he was bloodied and hungry and tired. He went below to get the butcher's roll and Dr. Stephen Maturin made him sit down to tend his wounds.

“I have not asked  you why we are in the Tyrrhenian Sea and apparently headed toward Italy.”

Jack smiled a little. “No, you have not but I have been summoned, Stephen, and that is where I must go.”

“For that you have put this entire ship at risk?”

“I had no choice, but as you see we have taken a prize and we didn’t lose a man. You said yourself there was nothing serious to report. We’ve done rather well, a good day’s work I’d say.”

“Will you go ashore in Italy or somewhere else?”

“I am bound for Rome…a rather serious situation. Toni Thorne has gone missing.”

“I wish you luck, my dear.”

“I may need that luck,” he smiled. “Are you quite finished?”

“Yes, I’ve patched you up once again."

Jack went up to his cabin, throwing off his coat and bloody shirt. He cleaned himself up and was ready for a meal.

They were in Terry’s room trying to figure out where to start. Dino had arrived and they were just sitting around bouncing ideas off each other and drinking a bottle of scotch.

“There ain’t nothing going on around here, Tio. I’ve called everybody I could think of, even the competition. Nobody’s got a clue.”

“I’ve been trying to tell myself all day that it takes time…I know it takes time for the first contact to come through. Sometimes weeks or months but I can’t go there, Dino. I know too much about this kind of thing.”

“What’s this about a fog?”

“Well one of the workers at a little vending operation past the arch saw a fog. She called it smoke and said it only lasted a short time and it was gone, disappeared. We talked to the cops and they hadn’t heard anything about it but were going to ask some questions. Now whether that had anything to do with Toni’s disappearance we don’t know,” John answered.

“Fog…that’s a new one. Could be some kind of smoke device to cover up.”

“That’s what I thought,” Terry said. “I didn’t see it myself. Apparently no one else did either. There’s another possibility…”

“A magic window. Remember the fog at La Fontaine?” Max asked.

“A window to where?”

“We don’t know,” John said and looked at Max.

“Jack is the only one we know who can do that, just move back and forth like opening a door. He’s been summoned but we have no idea where he is. He hasn’t answered a message I sent him.”

“I wish he’d show up. He may have some answers. Meantime all we can do is hit the streets, search out some old contacts,” Dino said.

“I’m not sure I have any in Rome.”

“Yeah, you do. You’re just not thinking. Fredo?”

“Is he still alive? I thought he lived somewhere else, down the Amalfi Coast?”

“I heard he was in Rome. We’ll find out. Why don’t we clear out and let you get some sleep? You look like hell, Terry.”

“That’s where I am right now.”

“We all love her, Terry, and we will find her,” John said and  moved toward the door.

“Thanks, I know you do,”  Terry answered.

Left alone in his room he lay back on the pillows on his bed. While he appreciated the love and support he was receiving from his family, none of that replaced the heart that was missing. He closed his eyes and tried once again to reach Toni but his mind could not touch hers. He tried puzzling this out, feeling as the others did that she was here in Rome. The only thing he could think of was that she was drugged as he had been and he prayed that was not so.

They’d been walking for several hours, combing the area around where Toni had disappeared and had come up with nothing.  “I’m going for water. Anybody else want any?” John asked.

“Bring me one,” Max replied. He’d been watching a cat sitting patiently in front of a hole in the rocks and felt they were doing much the same. Still the hole intrigued him. Something had to move somewhere to tell them which direction to go. The cat evidently didn’t speak English and Max gave up on him.

“Well, if she is drugged that might account for the fact none of you can touch her mind,”  Dino was saying to Terry.

“I didn’t have a mind during that time. Max said I shut down and Jack said pretty much the same thing.”

“You were a blank wall, Terry.” Max always knew he was alive but couldn’t get to him mentally.

Dino patted Terry on the knee. “I’m going Fredo-searching. Wanna come along?”

“No, mate, I think I might go back to the hotel for awhile. This is going nowhere. We’re just wearing out shoe leather.”

“Okay, see ya later, mate.” Dino took off on his own.

“Are you wearing thin, Terry?” Max asked.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Here comes John with water. We can head back now.”

Part 4:

Jack’s ship was in port at Fiumincino and being refitted. He had another battle to contend with on his way in but this time the prize got away. He was barged to shore carrying a canvas bag with his weapons inside along with his clothes. He followed a narrow road up into the town and then stepped into the twenty-first century. At first, as always, the noise was overwhelming.  Car horns and motor bikes, music blasting from vehicles as he passed them. He ignored the calls and comments and found a bus station and a ticket into Rome. He had with him a variety of money, Euros, English pound notes and some American dollars. His own money was stuffed in his bag in a leather purse. It wouldn’t spend in present day Italy. By the time he got into Rome he must have answered the same questions half a dozen times. No, he wasn’t an actor, no, he wasn’t a rock star, no, he didn’t play in a band and no, he wasn’t a waiter. He was dressed in his uniform.

He walked from the bus station to the hotel where Terry had made reservations for him. He signed in at the register and took the elevator. Looking straight ahead he felt his fellow passengers' eyes on himself but he ignored them.

By the time Terry, Max and John returned, Jack had showered and dressed and made himself at home in his hotel room. He was dabbing at a cut that had come open and was trying to bleed when he heard a knock on his door.

“Jack!”

“Terry!” A quick hug from Jack. “Hello, John, Max.” They came into his room.

“See you made it at last,” John said, finding a seat.

“Yes, I was off the coast of Gibraltar and have literally fought my way here. My ship is in port being refitted. We took quite a pounding. So, any news?”

“No, we were hoping you might shed some light on this, Jack,” Max said, flopping on the bed.

Terry moved around and sat on the other side, filling Jack in on what they knew and didn’t know.

“You say there was a fog?” Jack asked.

“I didn’t see it but a vendor operator did. Max says you’re the only one of us that can do that, open that magical door. It’s just a thought, Jack. We’ve nothing else to go on. No contact has been made if she was kidnapped. It could be some time before that happens. There’s nothing to do but wait, as hard as that is.”

“Well, I can assure you I did not open this magic door, as you call it. It was not I that caused her to disappear.” Jack walked over to the large window and looked out over the city. “She may be able to do that herself, you know, not that she’s ever tried it to my knowledge…but if…there is one other who can move back and forth, but I have never known him to do so unless he was called.”

“She only had four seasons, Jack, and none of us…”

“You forget, John, that first year there were three of you that she herself called for, you, Max…and Maximus.”

“Maximus…but he never came back.”

“True, the next fall she called Terry. She had her reasons.”

“Are you suggesting Maximus has something to do with her disappearance? We haven’t seen him in years, not since he came at the beginning of my season when the magic changed.”

“Max, Toni had a call from him last year. The House rented to a young woman and he had some concerns and called her before he went there but as far as I know there’s been no other communication between them,” Terry explained.

“This is getting crazy,” John said. “Why would he summon Toni? He knows she’s married to Terry.”

“We don’t know that he has, John. It was only the mention of the fog that caused me to think of it.”

“But if he has, Jack, how the hell do we get back to the year naught?”

“In all honesty I do not think Maximus would do that to Toni. And as far as going back to Maximus' era…I haven’t a clue.” Jack paced back and forth. “I suppose it could be done…”

“If it did happen, Jack, what are the chances she’s with him, whether he summoned her or not?”

“We all know what Maximus’ life was, depending of course where he is at the moment. She could be, but if he’s in Rome then I do not think the chances of Toni being with Maximus are very good.”

“She’d be on her own. No…no I can’t think about that!” Terry ran his hand through his hair and looked up at the ceiling.

“It sounds like a dangerous situation for her,” Max said and the room got very quiet for awhile.

“We don’t even know if she’s gone through a door. Is there any way to find out, Jack?”

“This is something new, John. It has never happened before. Maximus did not marry her for eternity and therefore we have no contact with him.”

“I don’t think he could summon her then. That’s something we share between us.”

“That makes sense, Max,” John agreed.

Terry’s phone went off. It was Dino wanting to know where they were. He gave him a room number.

“Dino’s on his way up.”

“Ah Dino is here! Very good!” Jack said

Toni was at this moment pressed against a wall by a crowd of people lining the road into the Colosseum. She’d been moving from doorway to doorway, arch to arch, trying to keep out of sight as much as possible. It had taken her several hours to shake a group of children that seemed to want to point and laugh between throwing rocks and mocking her in a language she couldn’t understand. She had resorted to stealing now, a large piece of fabric that she draped around herself to cover her modern dress. Food also had been stolen, some bread and a handful of olives.

The first rush of panic was past. Now it was a quest to survive.  She’d been trying to send a message to Terry and then tried to contact his brothers but she wasn’t receiving anything back. She recognized where she was but how she got there…

She’d been walking along with Terry and thinking about Maximus, wondering if he’d trod those same stones. Terry went to get her some water and she ran her hand over a wall. Had he seen it, had he touched something here…Maximus…memories of him came flooding back to her and she’d been engulfed in a fog. When it cleared she was still on the same road but in a different world.

She’d panicked and screamed. People backed away from her and began talking amongst themselves. She was frightened and ran into a crowd walking on the road. She could hear laughter behind her and people began to stare and laugh, pointing at her shoes and her skirt. That’s when she began hiding.

With the fabric wrapped around her and her leather belt holding it together, she draped her scarf over her head. Her tote bag fit into a basket she found by someone’s door. She’d become a thief, she told herself, but there wasn’t anything else she could do.

There appeared to be some sort of parade going past and she moved up on a stone to see. There were wild animals in cages, lions and tigers and a elephant walking along side. A larger cage now filled with men…all of a sudden she knew what it was and elbowed her way to the front. Was he in there?

“Maximus?” she yelled as it passed close by her.

He heard his name called and turned but could not see who had called him. And then he wondered who would know him as Maximus. He thought it had been a female voice.

Toni tried to keep up with the cage, stumbling through the crowd, but she could not get close to the cage again. She backed against the wall and the full knowledge of the situation hit her. He was here in Rome and she knew where he was in his life. He was near the end. There rose a tight knot in her chest that pushed its way upward into her throat. She managed to get out of the crowd and melted away into the shadows. She cried it out and sat on the ground, her head on her knees.

An older woman approached her and Toni flinched at her touch. She motioned for her to follow. She was led into a house and given a drink of water. Conversation was one-sided as Toni couldn’t understand anything the woman was saying, but through a sort of sign language she got the impression the woman thought she was a slave. She shook her head no. So then the woman asked about a man. Toni pointed in the direction the caged men had gone. The woman seemed to understand that her man was a slave but that would make this woman a slave, too. Perhaps she had escaped? No…she had followed.

Toni wanted more than anything to see and talk with Maximus because she thought he could tell her how to get back to her world. She tried with the woman. Was there any way she could get in to see her man? She understood…tomorrow.

“Nothing…”

“Sorry, Terry. Fredo made some calls but no word is out on the streets of an abduction.”

“That makes the other option even more of a reality.”

ON TO PART 5

BACK TO TOUCHING THE FLAME

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE