claws had ripped
_ishing
claws had ripped him open.
Leopards . . .
She shut her eyes, then reminded herself forcibly that she, too, had a part to play. Remember, you're drugged. A zombie. Don't think about what's coming, for either of us. You're a zombie. . . .
Little frisons of electric terror ran along her nerves every few seconds—every time she thought about Bericus and Tony Bartlett. He'd be waiting at the villa, just to be sure of her. How're you planning your escape, you bastard? Maybe she and Charlie could overpower him, somehow, maybe even get back to the twentieth century. . . .
Right, Cinderella. Wake up. The party's over and the prince never found the glass slipper. They had to plan their escape to survive in this time. Anything else was tantamount to suicide.
Activity along the shoreline eventually caught Sibyl's attention. Herculaneum, a city of four or five thousand, rose precipitously from the water, built on a series of terraces in a long, steep hillside that formed a small peninsula. That peninsula jutted out into the Mediterranean, faced by a stone seawall that fronted the whole town. A very narrow strand between the stone wall and the sea was littered with beached fishing boats. Their owners were busy dragging them out of the water for storage in the infamous arched boat chambers.
Sibyl knew this waterfront. Knew it well. Too well.
Near the center of the seawall,