Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1) by Matthew Storm Read Free Book Online Page A

least.”
    Oliver thought he saw Sally brighten up
at the “for now” but he decided not to make an issue of it. “So what am I
supposed to do?” he asked. “Hide here?
    “No,” Artemis replied. “This house can
only be used for short periods of time or else… things happen. And Mr.
Teasdale is hunting you. I don’t want him tracking you here.”
    “Can he see the house?” Sally asked.
    “Not yet,” Artemis replied. “But given
enough time, he would be able to discern that it is here.”
    “So I should…” Oliver began, hoping she
would finish the sentence for him.
    “We will need to figure out who hired him,”
Artemis said. “Who is it that wants you dead?”
    “Besides Sally?” Oliver asked.
    Oliver thought he saw another trace of a
smile from the girl. “Yes. Besides her.” She rubbed her palms together. “Well,
there is work to be done. Tyler, go to it. Take him with you and try to keep
him alive.”
    “Got it,” Tyler said.
    “What about me?” Sally asked.
    “You will drive me back to the office,”
Artemis said. “We have a matter to discuss.”
    Sally didn’t look pleased, but Oliver
noted that she didn’t argue with the girl. He was a bit relieved that she
wasn’t coming along with them. He wouldn’t have to worry about getting on her
bad side. But he still had questions before he took off with Tyler.
    “Wait a minute here,” Oliver said. “What
about my…my life? My house? My job? How am I going to explain all this to
people at work?”
    “I don’t know,” Artemis said, standing
up. “But I am certain that it will be much more difficult to explain if you are
dead. For now, Mr. Jones, I will ask you to trust us.”
    “And everything will be okay, I guess?”
he asked, feeling a bit of sarcasm might be called for.
    “Things rarely are,” Artemis said,
heading for the door. Sally trailed a step behind the girl. A moment later they
had both vanished through the door, back into the real world.
    “Now what?” Oliver asked Tyler.
    “I’m going to do the dishes,” Tyler
said, collecting the muffin plates and tea cups onto the tray and taking them
into the kitchen. 
    “Oh.” That seemed awfully mundane given
that they were inside a house where time stood still, but Oliver guessed that
household chores were the same wherever, or whenever you were. “And
then?”
    “Then we’re going to go find out who
wants to kill you,” Tyler called from the kitchen. “You want me to pack up some
of these muffins for later?”
    Oliver was about to say “no” when he
caught himself. “Yes,” he said. “Yes I do.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 8
     
     
    As a child, Oliver had
been enamored of fairy tales. One of his favorites had opened with the line,
“Sometimes more happens in a single day than in a hundred years.” What followed
was the story of an ordinary villager who wound up fighting an ogre and saving
a princess. Or something like that. Oliver could no longer remember exactly how
the story had gone. Whatever it had been, Oliver had decided he was having that
kind of day. When he’d gone to work this morning he’d been living an ordinary
life. In the few hours since then he’d been the victim of an assassination
attempt, had been gassed and sort-of kidnapped, and had eaten fantastic
blueberry muffins in a house that apparently existed in its own unique corner
of the space-time continuum. 
    Now he was on the run, and the only
people he felt sure he could trust, albeit hesitantly, were a creepy little
girl, a woman who had threatened to shoot him, and…Tyler.  Tyler, a man who possessed
a very questionable fashion sense, but made up for it with fantastic baking
skills.
    I’m so screwed , Oliver thought.
    Tyler had driven them to the Tenderloin
district in a black 1960’s era Dodge Charger. Oliver had marveled at the car
when he’d seen it parked outside the house. He hadn’t seen one like it in
years. “Did you have to go back in time to buy it?” he’d