by W. J. May
A disembodied voice floated up from amongst the peaches.
“Leave me out of this.”
It was like talking to a wall. Unwilling to be smuggled inside a vat of cherries, Molly was keeping her feet planted firmly on the ground, having already selected a target for her rage.
“No, Kerrigan. This is just one thing too many!” Her eyes flashed electric blue, and for a split second Rae was terrified she didn’t need her tatù in order to throw sparks. “Did you know that Madame DeLampre offered me an apprenticeship and I had to turn it down?!”
Rae threw up her hands, sending an explosion of leaves into the air. “Well, that’s just perfect. I suppose you’re going to blame me for that, too... wait a second.” She pulled herself up as straight as the produce would allow. “Who’s Madame DeLampre?”
“She’s the woman who owns the clothing store,” Molly retorted. “Honestly, Rae, we were in there for almost two hours. How could you have possibly not learned her name?”
“She was blackmailing us for information!” Rae fired back. “Why the heck were you discussing apprenticeships with a woman who was blackmailing us?!”
Molly’s eyes narrowed with a scathing glare. “Oh, come on. Can you really blame her?”
“YES, actually! I most certainly CAN!”
“Ladies...” Devon had long ago learned not to get between the women in his life when they were having a fight, but time was of the essence. “Perhaps we can discuss it on the way there?”
“An excellent idea.” Gabriel slid down next to Angel, shining an apple on his sleeve, while Julian leaned over the side of the cart to bid a heartfelt farewell to Olanna.
“Thank you for everything,” he said quietly. “I know we were asking a lot. It is very much—very greatly—appreciated.”
“Not at all, dear boy.” She cupped his face, a knowing twinkle dancing in her eyes. “You are blood. And blood always comes home eventually.”
The two shared a long look before she finally released him.
“Maybe we’ll see you again someday.”
Julian leaned back with a wistful little smile. “Yeah, maybe.”
Maybe in four hundred years or so.
With the greatest reluctance, Molly lifted her arms and allowed herself to be pulled into the cart. Once there, she picked what she deemed the least abominable spot and nestled down beside her husband with a sigh.
“Well, it’s official. I’m being smuggled in fruit.”
“Honey, that’s not true,” Luke said optimistically. “You’re being smuggled as fruit. There’s a big difference.”
Rae moved quickly to the other side of the wagon before she could hear her friend’s choice response. The horse started moving at a fast clip as she sank into the oranges next to Devon. Lifting a hand in a sticky wave to the group of people standing in the road behind her. “What do you think?” she asked quietly. “Do we stand a chance?”
Devon stared after the gypsies for another moment before turning towards the city. “I’ll bet they’re guessing we’re going to stick with the caravan at all costs. Avoid going out on our own.” His eyes swept over the band of similar carts travelling beside them. “A guy named Jac told me that at least a hundred wagons travel on this road very day. Transporting everything from wool, to food, to lumber, to livestock. We’ll be just one in the crowd and they won’t be looking for us. So, yeah,” he concluded, “we might stand a chance.”
Rae watched him for a moment before looking down with a secret smile. “A guy named Jac...”
Top agent of a covert intelligence agency, and he was basing his plan off a conversation he had over eggs and bacon with a guy named Jac. Carter would be so proud.
“Shut up,” he chuckled, giving her a playful shove. “You’re going along with it, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she conceded, “but I have famously bad judgement. Just ask Molly.”
The redhead gave her a death stare from across the cart as the gang settled in for what promised to be one of their more memorable rides into London. Looking at them now, half-submerged in an ocean of quickly-rotting fruit, Rae fought the urge again to reach for her camera.
She turned to her husband instead. Feeling suddenly shy.
“Hey, Dev?”
How had they not talked about it yet? How had they possibly managed to avoid the subject, when they’d been trapped together in close quarters all this time?
“Yeah, babe?”
The look on his face caught her off guard. So did the tone of his voice. There was nothing guarded about it. Nothing to imply that things might be remotely wrong.
Maybe he didn’t hear a word of it. Maybe he honestly was asleep.
“Tell me the truth,” she began quietly, scooting close enough to take his hand. “Last night, when we were both in the wagon...” She trailed off nervously, staring up into those bright eyes.
“Yeah?” he prompted curiously.
All at once, her courage failed her. She didn’t ask the question. She asked the next best thing.
“Did you also sleep with a man named Paco?”
Chapter 10
“—at which point the door flew off the wagon and we realized that it was, in a fact, a toilet.”
Rae lowered her forehead to the table. Desperately clutching her flagon of ale little tears of laughter ran down her cheeks.
They’d made it into the city with no problems whatsoever. Too easily. Like a child playing pranks in school. It had made them giddy. They were relieved and strangely relaxed. Maybe Rae should have considered it too easy. Maybe they all should have. They were spies, after all. Trained trackers and attackers. Four hundred years above these people in training. They deserved to cut themselves some slack. They were going to be going home sooner than later now.
After sneaking out of the fruit cart and bidding a whispered farewell to their driver, she and the others decided they needed to get off the street and out of sight as quickly as possible. What better place to do that than in a tavern? Not a local bar—where anyone who lived in the city might gather—but a tavern. One specifically connected to the inn, renting rooms just up the stairs.
The food was good. The whiskey had been flowing. And now that they were back in the city with the time-traveler almost within their grasp, it was okay for them to loosen up and catch their breath.
“I told them not to go in there,” Devon said with a shudder. “The place was a rolling death-trap. I enjoy the lack of smog as much as the next guy, but I’d trade it for indoor plumbing any day.”
“Hear, hear!”
Gabriel and Julian clinked their glasses against his, while Luke turned to the scowling beauty by his side. The only person not to have embraced the ‘we’re going back to our own time’ festivities.
“Come on, sweetie, what’s the matter?” He snaked an arm around Molly’s waist with a coaxing smile. “We made it out of the wagon, didn’t we? You even said the juice moisturized your hair.”
She turned up her nose with a delicate sniff. “I smell like peaches.”
He flushed with a grin, biting her playfully beneath the ear. “I love peaches.”
The two dissolved into a drunken spur-of-the-moment tickle war. One that would have most surely progressed to something else if a fist hadn’t suddenly banged down on the table.
“Yeah, all that’s going to have to wait,” Gabriel warned them, holding up his napkin like a white flag. “Angel and I might have stolen us some money, but it’s only enough for the one room.”
Luke paused for a split second, then flashed the table a tentative smile. “In that case, I’d like to thank you all in advance for volunteering to sleep outside.”
This hopeful proclamation was met with a chorus of cruel and sarcastic laughter.
“Not in a million years,” Angel declared, tossing back a sheet of white hair as she downed the shot in front of her. “If anyone’s having to have their own room tonight, it’s going to be me and Jules.”
She didn’t sa
y why exactly they’d have priority over anybody else. She seemed to assume that it was a foregone conclusion.
While her husband flashed her an adoring smile, discreetly scanning the room to see if there were any places private enough for a husband and wife encounter, Molly smacked Devon on the arm with a drunken grin. “What about you, Dev? Aren’t you going to stake your claim?”
His eyebrows pulled together as he finished his drink with a martyred sigh. “Actually, I’ve recently been told my wife no longer desires my affections. She prefers the company of the local swineherd instead.”
Gabriel spat out a mouthful of whiskey, then quickly averted his eyes.
“We all saw it coming,” Angel volunteered helpfully.
“Would you stop already!” Rae exclaimed, grabbing her husband by the arm. “You never even let me explain—”
“You didn’t even try to explain,” Devon interrupted with that same mournful sigh. “You simply asked if I had spent the night with a man named Paco as well.”
The rest of them didn’t miss a beat. They zeroed in like hounds on a kill.
“Paco?” Julian asked with a frown. “Wasn’t he the guy we met down by the river? The one with the weird thing on his—”
“One and the same.”
Rae dropped her head to the table as Luke downed his whiskey with a smile.
“Classic Paco.”
Everyone agreed. It was classic Paco.
“So what about it, Dev?” Molly flashed a wicked grin. “Did you get to know Paco as well?”
“I didn’t feel as though I had a choice.” Devon raked back his hair, looking quite resigned to the matter. “Rae’s always been impulsive. You know I can’t let her do these things by herself.”
The table burst out laughing again. With one solitary exception.
“Well, I think that’s great.” Angel offered each one a genuine smile before lifting the bottle to pour herself another drink. “Marriage is hard. It’s good to mix things up every now and then.”
The rest of them laughed even harder, until Julian looked up.
“Wait... what?”
The rest of the night proceeded in a similar fashion. Rae blushing a million shades of red as the entire table roared with laughter. Laughter that was quite a bit louder than it would have been if they weren’t already three bottles in. She let them have their fun, even waving it along. But when Julian began drawing a picture of Paco on his napkin, she pushed to her feet with a tipsy scowl.
“All right. Give me the money, you jerks. I’m going to pay up.”
The others continued laughing as Angel counted the correct coinage into her palm. A second later Rae was weaving her way through the bustling tavern, vowing that when she finally got back to her own time she was going to make a gang of different friends instead.
And we’ll all live right next to each other. And I can get them all jobs where I work. And maybe some of them can even have an American accent so I won’t be the only... THAT looks amazing!
Her job had been to simply settle up the tab, but an iridescent bottle on the shelf caught her attention and she found herself reconsidering her options. They technically had enough money, and wasn’t Gabriel always saying how easy it was to get more? Besides, in the last tumultuous week they’d been sucked back in time, thrown out of a bar, beaten at the races, robbed by a seamstress, and smuggled into the city in a glorified box of rotting fruit.
They’d earned a break.
“Excuse me?” In a burst of drunken enthusiasm she hopped up onto the counter, waving wildly to get the bartender’s attention. “Begging your pardon, but can I—”
OUCH!
She slipped off the counter in a liquored haze, dropping back to the floor just as a young man carrying an armful of drinks was walking behind her. Their feet collided, the glasses went flying, and in the tangle of limbs that followed he was just barely able to catch her in time.
“What the—”
She caught the front of his shirt, dangling just inches above the floor. He smelled of smoke and wine and wood. His clothes were damp now just like hers.
“I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, trying dizzily to find her balance as a pair of strong arms set her gently on her feet. “I didn’t even see you... that was my completely my...”
She trailed off as the two of them locked eyes.
“...fault.”
Even looking back on it later, safe and sober in the comfort of her own home, Rae would never be able to describe exactly what happened in that moment.
The way time seemed to stop as she forever immortalized the image. The way her body froze in dreamlike recognition as her heart started pounding in her chest. The way those blue eyes seemed to pierce right through her. Eyes that were somehow as familiar as her own.
It was like running into an old friend. Someone you’d forgotten you used to know. Familiar and yet, completely forgotten from your memory.
“Are you all right?”
He even sounded familiar. Breathless. Surprised. And with a touch of concern.
“Yeah.” She smoothed back her hair with a flush, blinking quickly as she tried to pull herself together. “Sorry, I’m—”
“Rae.”
The two of them glanced over at the same time to see Devon slowly rising from his seat. He may have been missing his supernaturally-heightened sensitivity, but it would be a cold day in hell before he failed to notice something going on with his wife. On either side, Gabriel and Julian looked up with sudden attention. The rest of the table was quick to follow suit.
Rae let out a quiet sigh, shoulders tightening in embarrassment.
“I’m sorry.” She grimaced apologetically, turning back to her whiskey-soaked savior. “I’m afraid we’re all a little—”
But he was gone.
“—drunk.”
Her lips parted as she whirled around in surprise, scanning the crowd. The bar was as noisy and chaotic as ever, but the handsome man who’d stood before her, the one with those impossible eyes, was nowhere to be found. It was like she’d simply imagined him.
“Hey, Kerrigan!” Molly called loudly. “You coming or what?”
She stood frozen for another moment, head spinning, hand on her chest, before lowering it back to her side as she weaved her way to the table.
“Yeah,” she murmured, too quiet for any of them to hear, “I’ll be right there.”
Chapter 11
Despite the rather rocky start to the morning, the band of friends was able to sleep relatively well that night. The ten gallons of whiskey flying through their system didn’t hurt. Neither did the fact that they’d spent a significant part of the afternoon buried in fruit.
Only Rae found herself lying awake hours after the rest. Staring up at the ceiling. Listening to the sounds of their breathing. Occasionally stroking the back of Devon’s hand.
Who was that guy? she asked herself for the millionth time. Followed by a slightly more relevant question. Nobody just shows up and then disappears. Or was I too drunk? Maybe it didn’t even happen.
Since her sixteenth birthday, when that magical fairy appeared on her lower back, Rae had spent her time travelling the world. Fighting the good fight. Saving it from darkness. Getting herself into more kinds of trouble than she or her friends would ever care to admit.
She had met her fair share of people. Experienced her fair share of surreal life moments. Just a few years ago a criminal mastermind had made her the unwilling subject of his devotion, and she’d had to raise a literal army to defeat him. She’d been immortal, then, to boot.
But this wasn’t like any of that.
She didn’t know what, she didn’t know how, and she didn’t know why exactly it was hitting her so hard. But something about that man wasn’t like any of the others. Something about those blue eyes seemed to have imprinted on her very soul.
A wave of nausea swept over her and she grabbed the blanket with a groan.
Or maybe I’m still really drunk.
“Put it out,” she called silently, hoping they would hear her. She winced painfully as it got brighter, and covered her face with the back of her hand. “Hey, genius, put it out—”
The door burst open and she let out a scream.
It happened too fast for anyone to stop it. Most of her friends didn’t even open their eyes.
There was a flurry of shadowy limbs and profanities. A series of painful impacts as people were knocked unconscious before they could properly wake. Someone Rae couldn’t see grabbed her by the waist just as a hand flew out of the darkness, hitting the back of her head.
A few seconds was all it took. Just a few seconds, and Rae and her friends were being dragged out of their beds and carried off into the darkness.
The most powerful people in the world... vanishing without a trace.
“RAE KERRIGAN, I AM never going to forgive you for this.”
Instead of being lined up across the floor, lying on straw mattresses as they curled into each other’s arms, the gang was lined up across a wall. Backs to the cold stone. Arms in chains.
There wasn’t much room to move around. Sheesh, there was hardly even space to move her head. But Rae still managed to turn and give Molly a scathing glare. “And how exactly is this my fault?”
She didn’t remember being carried down into the basement. She didn’t remember much of anything before she had woken up found herself strapped against the wall. An icy chill was leeching into her bare feet, inching its way slowly up her legs, and a sharp point on the back of her head was throbbing. Though, to be fair, that might have had as much to do with the liquor as the concussion.
“You said you wanted to go to the bar,” the tiny redhead shot back, twisting as far as she was able in the cuffs. “You said you wanted to get a room for the night.”
Rae closed her eyes, feeling abruptly tired. “Gabriel said he wanted to go to the bar. Luke said he wanted to get a room for the night.”
