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“It doesn’t look like Toecheese.” I said turning back around to face Marco.

A smile pulled at Marco’s mouth. My mispronunciation the first time I heard Toches’s name became my nickname for the evil brigand and gave my fellow defenders a chuckle. “He’s good at changing his appearance.”

Kishin Toches was a nasty brigand I had encountered during a trip back to the Second World War. He had the special gift of personifying others. He took a key that didn’t belong to him and I had to take it back. He wasn’t happy about the outcome, and I’d been on his shit list ever since.

“Are you sure? I thought Mahlia made the jump, how come he didn’t register?”

Marco shrugged. “I know as much as you do. Maybe Mahlia is transporting for him.”

“I’m surprised they let him travel. I mean, he doesn’t have a key, and I doubt Gian-Carlo would give him one. Maybe she dumped him here. Are you positive it’s him?” I didn’t want to harass a local.

“Yeah, beady eyes, slouched gait, and he didn’t acknowledge a single soul. Besides, he’s imitating Rasputin—his beard’s too nineteenth century for this time.”

I did a double take, and sure enough the doppelgänger of the Russian religious charlatan sat at the counter sipping sludge.

“Should we wait and follow him?” I asked Marco.

“No, the moon cycle is closing. I’m hungry, and I need a taco.”

“And grouchy.”

“I’m not grouchy, traveling with you makes me uhm…irritable.”

“Why is that?”

“You know what I mean.”He meant horny.

“What would you like to do?” I asked.

“Let’s go ask him why he’s here?”

“Ask him?” Allowing a mark to make us wasn’t on the smartest things for a WTF agent to-do list.

“Yep, unless you can think of a faster way to get to the bottom of this.”

I shrugged, agreeing with his plan. Tacos sounded good to me, too.

Marco reflected my nod. He rose, taking his mug with him. I left mine on the table. We bookended the sneaky brigand. His thin frame and squirrelly attitude made him a little less scary than Mortas, but he was unstable. Toches might pull out a gun and shoot us, regardless that when a time traveler kills another time traveler they also die.

“Hey Kishin, fancy meeting you here,” Marco said to Toches as he took the stool next to him.

Toches’s head jerked up from his ale, and he started to bolt out the opposite side of his chair, but I blocked him.

“You can’t leave without paying the barkeep, that would be very rude of you.” I wagged a finger at him.

Marco placed a hand on Toches’s shoulder. He sat down with a thud and pulled his mug of ale closer.

“I’m here on vacation,” he said, an evil grinch grin turning up the corners of his mouth.

“What kind of vacation?” Marco asked him.

“The kind you take when a guy wants to go somewhere for the hell of it.”

Marco pondered this idea for a minute, and I wondered how long it had been since Marco had been on vacation. Then I remembered I hadn’t been on a vacation in a long time. Jake owed us some down time.

“Why would you take a vacation to Salem in 1692?” I asked him.

“I want to see one of them witches burned at the stake.” He took a sip from his mug, and his previously underdeveloped bicep strained against his shirt sleeve.

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