Time Will Tell

by Chloe Garner

  “I was curious, though, if you could tell me who killed them,” Kirsten said.

  “I’m not sure I’m interested in doing that,” Hunter said.

  “I have a reason,” Kirsten said. “I’ve run across one of the men before. He was referred by some unusual channels as a fountain, and I employed him for about six months, some ten years ago. He saw seven clients, and then he disappeared. None of the money I wired to him ever left the account it went into. All seven clients also disappeared. I tracked him down, naturally, and my people were under instructions to either bring him in or end him violently, whichever seemed more convenient at the time, but none of them ever came back, and I lost my lead on him. Wasn’t able to find him again.”

  “That’s an interesting story,” Hunter said.

  “I’m going to do the cleanup for free,” Kirsten said, “as a token to whoever killed him, but I wanted to send a thank-you gift as well, and wanted to find out who they were so that I could tailor it to their interests.”

  Tina rolled onto her back, looking at the ceiling.

  “I’ll find out for you, if I can,” Hunter said. “Thanks again.”

  “Thank you, as always, for your business,” Kirsten answered and hung up.

  “You killed a guy that her hit squad couldn’t take out,” Hunter said, rolling onto his stomach and propping himself up on his elbows. “Congratulations.”

  “He wasn’t that impressive,” Tina said. “He should have shot me, but he didn’t. And then, well, Colette flashed him with her phone while he was wearing night-vision goggles, and I threw him into a wall. Just kind of done and done at that point.”

  Hunter shook his head, smiling playfully.

  “I know it should bother me, this idea of you out in an alley dodging bullets and engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a bad, bad man…” He paused, grinning. “But I’m aroused. I have a type.”

  “Scary?” Tina asked, and he grinned wider, rolling onto his back again.

  “Indomitable,” he said.

  “I’m not that…” Tina started, then shook her head. “It was luck. He should have shot me.”

  He looked over at her with a gleam in his eye and shook his head.

  “They put a hole in Tell.”

  “They put two holes in Tell,” Tina said. “They only put one hole in me, the night before. It just didn’t happen to be the right bullet.”

  He shrugged.

  “You would have thrown him in a wall, fed on him, torn his throat out, and gotten Colette here, all the same,” he said. “And then you would have figured it out and…”

  “Look at you all silly and happy,” Tina said, laying down alongside him again. “I thought you guys were supposed to be afraid for my safety and make sure I take teenage eating machines with me, when I go out, for backup.”

  He sighed, kissing her forehead.

  “I don’t like it,” he said quietly. “I don’t get why the two of you do any of what you do. Tell is easily as rich as I am. He could tour the beaches of the world by moonlight for the next four centuries and not put a dent in what he’s got stashed away. Why would you risk your lives?”

  “So that when you get a bounty put on your head for standing up a social diva, you’ve got a safe place to land,” Tina said. He snorted.

  “Not going to argue with that,” he said. “Still. The two of you together? I’m not sure I’d bet against you, taking on anyone.”

  “I wouldn’t, either,” Tina admitted.

  He shifted lower, laying his head flat on the bed to look up at her with earnest eyes.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too,” she answered, a bit concerned at what was going to come next. He shook his head.

  “I’ve lived too long to change fast,” he said. “Silly, shallow things… They’re silly and shallow. It’s not like me, it’s not like any of us to find importance in something that’s lasted as short a period of time as you.”

  “Like my life, or like me being here?” Tina asked. He nodded.

  “You being here,” he said. “I don’t want you to go. I want you to be trapped here with me to feed and screw and play and…” He reached up, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’d be happy.”

  Tina shook her head.

  “You lie. A lot. You wouldn’t be happy. You just like the idea.”

  “You know who I’m jealous of?” he asked. “Tell.”

  “I just asked if you were jealous,” Tina said, and he grinned.

  “You did. I’m jealous that he gets to spend all of this time with you, like it’s normal.”

  “You could,” Tina said. “You’re the one who keeps running off. I’m always here.”

  “You are,” he said. “And I do. I can’t be the one who stays, can I?”

  She shook her head, and he closed his eyes, turning his head away for a moment.

  He swallowed and looked at her again.

  “Marry me,” he said.

  “No,” Tina answered. He laughed.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “I want to be the one who stays.”

  Tina shook her head.

  “No. You…” She dropped her head slowly to rest her forehead against his. “You’re married,” she breathed.

  “So?” he asked. “No one can prove that. I’ve got a legal identity, you’ve got a legal identity, and those don’t even matter, anyway. Pick any name you want. I want to marry you.”

  “We don’t work,” Tina said. “I’m not saying that I’m giving up all hope, but we need to prove that we work, before we talk about forever.”

  “Forever,” he breathed. “You believe that, don’t you?”

  “What? That marriage means we’re together? Yes. Dating means that we’ll see how it goes. Marriage is the end of that conversation. We’re together.”

  “It doesn’t always work,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “I know. And that’s why we stick it out and try and see. But I’m not going to marry you. Why would you even ask?”

  He reached up to slide his hand down the back of her arm, over her elbow, finding her wrist and closing his hand around it.

  “Because I want you to come with me, and I want to go with you,” he said. “I want us to belong together more than you and Tell belong together.”

  “Then stop running off,” Tina said. “I’m so done with you guys doing that.”

  He nodded.

  Swallowed.

  “You make me nervous,” he finally said with a quiet laugh. “I love that about you.”

  She breathed the smell of him, listening to the sound of his breath.

  “I don’t want you to go,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do. That’s another very good reason I can’t just marry you. If you left…”

  “You would consider staying with Tell,” he said. “I know.”

  “We’re going to fix it,” Tina said. “You just said you wouldn’t bet against us. We’re both going to go after it, after we figure out all of this stuff with the Order, and we’re going to fix it. Your amazing land empire will survive, and so will Hunter.”

  He nodded, licking his lips and lifting his jaw to kiss her.

  “I believe you,” he said.

  She put her fingers to his temple, realizing the number of hours he was here by himself, stuck and aware of it.

  She nodded.

  “We’re going to fix it,” she said. He put his hand over hers, there on the side of his face, then he grinned, grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her down against him.

  Hunter took the third fountain to their room and closed the door as Tina and Tell went downstairs with the other two.

  “You two get everything figured out?” Tell asked as they stood at the elevator, watching the doors close.

  “You know as well as I do that there’s no way to do that,” Tina said.

  “If he leaves, you shouldn’t go with him,” Tell said his voice even, soft. Not for Hunter’s ears.

  “I d
on’t see how that’s got anything to do with you,” Tina said, and he nodded.

  “Hunter’s scrappy. He’ll make it. You have no idea how hard this life is without the money to buy what you need.”

  Tina looked at him openly, and he met her gaze without flinching.

  “I’m telling you what is,” he said. “I know it’s very romantic, the idea of running away together, and I know that you aren’t considering it lightly. But you need to know that it would very likely kill you, as impressive as your survival skills have proven to be.”

  “I thought that you were rooting for us,” she said, and he snorted.

  “I’ve been pragmatic about it every bit as much as you have, but I also knew that neither of you would be happy if you didn’t try. When it’s time to stop trying, you are a vampire, and you are safe here. Those things matter.”

  “Unless I cure it,” Tina said, and he nodded.

  “Unless you cure it,” he agreed. “Then you can stay, you can go, or you can start a life as a human again. It’s up to you. But as a vampire, you need to understand that your best course is to be where there is money to support you.”

  Tina closed her eyes.

  “One thing at a time,” she said.

  “One thing at a time,” he agreed, turning to go into the kitchen, where Colette was leaning on her elbows on the table, staring off into space.

  “Are you okay?” Tell asked, and she jerked, apparently stifling a reflex to hug him.

  “Yeah,” she said, shaking her hands out and handing the stack of papers to Tina. The detail on them was impressive.

  “Do you know how to decode the books?” Tina asked, and Colette shook her head.

  “No. I don’t know who wrote them.”

  Tina took the pages and sat down across from Colette as Tell brought over a third chair.

  “You’ve had time to think,” he said. “You need to convince me that we should do anything at all about Kyle. Your presence in the city puts a lot of lives in danger, and it means that we need to make that decision right now. What are we going to do about any of this?”

  Colette licked her lips then rubbed her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve felt guilty about it for decades, now, and I thought about you… all the time, while I was in Albert. The idea that I’ve put your life at risk by coming here… I honestly… I thought you were invincible. That I was asking Superman for help. That that could never be wrong. And… I shouldn’t have come. I just… I wanted to be me for a little while, again. I try so hard to blend in, in Albert, like you said, and I do have a life there, but it isn’t mine, and I realized…” She looked at her hands and nodded. “I realized that I only get one shot at this. I can’t go re-do my life over and over again the way that you do, and sitting around being sad that that isn’t my reality… I was wasting what I do get. And this is it.” She spread her hands. “This is it, Tell. My whole life, hiding away in some little town half a world away from where I am. I’m not going back.”

  Tina blinked.

  She hadn’t seen that coming.

  “Okay,” Tell said evenly. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  She shook her head.

  “I can’t ask you to do anything. You protected me, all of those years ago, and it created antibiotic-resistant cultists. They can kill you, now, and I… I’m not asking you to get in the middle of it anymore.”

  “Like hell,” Tina said, turning the page on Colette’s notes.

  They both looked at her briefly, then went back to their conversation, though Tina saw the little twitch at the corner of Tell’s eye that told her that her opinion was noted.

  “I’m going to go and I’m going to talk to Elroy,” Colette said. “I’m going to ask him to let Kyle go, to not go through with it.”

  “What are you going to offer him as trade?” Tell asked. She shook her head.

  “Nothing. I’m not coming back to him any more than I’m coming back to you. He can kill me or he can not, he can do what I ask or he can not, but I’m done hiding and… and if Kyle can stand there and watch them kill me, then I guess we all get what we deserve.”

  “Like hell,” Tina said again.

  They both looked at her again, and again Tell’s eye ticked.

  “If you’re trying to manipulate me into doing something because you have no better way of doing it than blackmail…” Tell warned.

  “I’m not,” Colette said. “I’m not. I’m just… I’m tired. I’m tired of not being who I am, and I want it to be done.”

  “Surely not enough to rather be dead,” Tina said. “Albert can’t be that bad.”

  “You don’t know,” Colette said.

  “That’s not a no,” Tina replied, turning the page again.

  “You want to survive,” Tell said. “And either I have to wipe all of them out, or you have to go back to Albert. Or somewhere else. Those are your options, and neither of them have anything to do with Kyle.”

  “He’s an idiot, but he’s my brother,” Colette said. “I have to try. I can’t just sit back and let them kill him. I don’t care how cool he thinks it is.”

  Tell sighed.

  Looked over at Tina.

  “Can you do something to keep them from killing us?” he asked, and she shook her head casually.

  “Other than preventing them from hitting us in the first place? Pretty much no. And we won’t have Hunter there to save you, this time. And we both know there’s no chance I can do it.”

  “No chance,” Tell agreed.

  “With more time, I could try to find something that would counteract their chemical, but I’d be guessing in the dark…”

  Her phone rang.

  The thing was, she had her phone in her hand, checking on details from Colette’s notes, and that certainly wasn’t the one ringing.

  She stood up, going into the kitchen and finding the phone that Vince had procured for her, answering it.

  “Hello?”

  “You were supposed to tell me that you hadn’t died,” Tony said.

  “I… Honestly, I’m not out of the woods yet,” Tina answered. “But I probably would have forgotten anyway. So. I’m sorry.”

  “His blood doesn’t clot,” Tony cut in as she got to the end.

  “What now?” Tina asked.

  “Did you treat it?” Tony asked. “I’ve heard somewhere that vampires treat their blood supplies with anticoagulant.”

  “No,” Tina said. “That’s how it came out of his arm.”

  “It doesn’t clot,” Tony said. Tina frowned.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “It means he’s a hemophiliac,” Tony said. Tina shook her head, turning the phone away from her face.

  “You couldn’t have survived the middle ages as a hemophiliac, could you?” she asked.

  “Not the middle ages,” Tell said dismissively. “No. I had plenty of falls and wounds and fights and like that. I don’t remember anything special about it.”

  “He wasn’t,” Tina said, turning her attention to the phone again.

  “Well, he is now,” Tony said. Tell frowned, nodding.

  “Actually, I had thought it was just a part of being human, but it took a lot more than I’ve seen with other humans to get my arm to stop bleeding after I do draws. And I got a huge bruise,” Tell said.

  “Okay,” Tina said slowly. “How does that happen? Are all vampires hemophiliacs when they’re human again?”

  “Human again?” Colette asked. “What is she talking about?”

  Tell shook his head, his interest trained on Tina.

  “No,” he said. “I think that that would be known.”

  “Wait,” Tony said. “Wait wait wait… The tumor. Wow. Wow, oh, wow.”

  “What?” Tina asked.

  “You wanted rare, I’ll give you rare,” Tony said. “There’s a known condition where a tumor can cause hemophilia. It’s super rare, almost unstudied, but I’m looking at it right here. And that
wasn’t even what killed him? He managed to get smallpox, too?”

  “Tumor?” Tell mouthed, and Tina nodded apologetically. She hadn’t gotten around to telling him about it.

  “It would explain… some of the other things I know,” Tina said. “Wow. Um. Wow. Thank you.”

  “What next?” Tony asked. “What do you need me to do?”

  She shook her head, feeling numb.

  “I think you solved everything, actually,” she said. “I’ll… I owe you a really nice dinner, soon. So long as I survive everything else going on.”

  “Tina?” he asked. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No,” she said. “Thanks. I need to go.”

  “All right. Well. Let me know you aren’t dead, okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll try to remember this time.”

  She put the phone down on the counter, looking at it for a moment.

  “It’s in your blood,” she said. “Just like she said.”

  “It doesn’t work,” Tell answered. “I mean, it’s convenient and it’s awfully coincident, but…”

  Tina walked over and showed him the dietary list that Colette had written.

  “They’re all organic blood thinners,” she said. “Aspirin and vitamin E? I’d have figured it out on my own with a few more weeks.”

  “But this is how you keep someone from dying,” Tell said. “Has nothing to do with being a vampire. Both the cause and the cure go in the same direction? They ought to work against each other.”

  Tina nodded.

  “I suspect that the drug that they use for real hemophiliacs, the one that makes them clot more effectively… I bet that it would at least partially counteract the chemical that they’re putting in their bullets.”

  She felt floaty and out of control.

  The answer was there, just waiting for her to pluck it out of the sea of information, but Tell was right. It just didn’t quite fit, yet, and she didn’t have time.

  “It’s tonight, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Better tonight than tomorrow,” Tell answered. “We don’t know for sure how much time Kyle has left, and we don’t want them to get organized.”

  Tina nodded.

  Pulled out her phone and looked up what she wanted to try, showing it to Tell.