by Bond, Casey
Whenever I tried to move, a pain streaked through my spine. It had been at least an hour since I landed. An hour I lay among the dead, among the crows, the smoke, the wind and leaves, and the silence that filled the spaces between.
I should have recovered by now.
What if I’m paralyzed?
I didn’t know if I should call out to them or not, and I lay there a few very long moments wondering what they might do if I did. But in the end, I needed help. In the end, they were the only two living souls around. I had to take the chance.
“Help!” I cried out weakly, trying to sit up and failing.
“Who is there? Show yourself!” one replied.
I raised my arm. It was the best I could do. “We’re on the way!” he yelled.
“I’ll just… wait right here.” Among the dead, wondering if Titus and Abram are included among them, or if I landed alone.
I knew I wasn’t back in my time. I didn’t know where I was or what war I’d landed in the middle of, but I never wanted to experience it again. Reminding myself that in our first jump, Titus had the misfortune to land in a bloated pile of dead plague victims, I told myself I’d be okay. I could survive this. The impact. The odor. The memory of the boy. The feeling of helplessness. Aloneness. Smallness.
The cart came closer, the front wheels squeaking under the weight of the dead. Both boys rushed to my side. The dark-haired boy sucked in a breath.
“What is she doing here? Captain’s going to have a fit,” the fiery one promised.
“You’d think she would have learned not to follow us by now. Maybe this will finally teach her, once and for all,” the dark-haired boy clucked, shaking his head.
“Please stop talking about me like I can’t hear you. I’m going to be fine, but I need help,” I gritted. “I can’t stand up.”
The dark-haired young man pursed his lips and wiped the sweat from his brow with a dingy sleeve. “Empty the cart. I’ll help you lift her.”
“Thank you,” I breathed. They placed the dead bodies back onto the soil and the dark-haired boy attempted to wipe some of the blood out of the cart’s bottom. Most of it had already soaked into the wood, but there were puddles where the seams were tightest.
The world spun as they lifted me up and gently positioned me in their cart.
“Not sure if you remember me. I’m William,” said the one with hair of fire, the one who gave the impassioned speech on my behalf. He shrugged off his blue coat and draped it over me. “Best to cover you up, Miss.”
“What?” Why would I remember him?
He took hold of the cart’s handles and lifted them up. Gravity pushed my body forward, farther into the cart. I tried not to cry as the cart bounced over the earth and rolled me through the sea of the dead.
“Miss?” he prodded gently, as the world faded away.
* * *
When I woke, I was laying on my back. A pale piece of canvas was draped overhead, the stiff fabric flapping in the cool breeze. I was in a tent. The pain I’d felt from impact was gone, replaced by a dull ache radiating throughout my muscles.
Stretching my arms and raising my head, I found I had total control of my limbs once again. I wiggled my toes and a knot formed in my throat. When my suit didn’t heal me as fast as it had the last two jumps, I thought that maybe it wouldn’t this time, or that it couldn’t.
An arm lifted the door flap and a young man ducked inside. “It’s me – William,” he offered cautiously. “I’m not sure if you remember me.”
“I do,” I replied, leaning on one elbow and sitting semi-upright. “Thank you for helping me.”
He removed his hat and worried the edge, spinning the triangular leather around and around. “Of course, Miss. I’ve just come to see if you are well.”
I gave him a slight smile. “I am. Thanks to you.”
William gave a sheepish smile.
Just then, the flap opened again and Asa stepped inside. He was so tall, he had to bend down just to fit inside. “William,” he announced darkly, erasing the young man’s smile. “You are dismissed. I don’t want to catch you near her again.”
William swallowed thickly and inclined his head at me. “Miss.” Turning around, he ducked his head and exited the tent.
“That was rude,” I chastised, instinctually reaching for one of my stakes and realizing I no longer had them.
“Don’t bother,” Asa intoned. “I’m not nearly as foolish as my brother.”
“Where is he?”
“You just missed him, actually. He mounted a horse and rode away just after dawn this morning. William told me where he found you. It’s quite possible he may have passed you by.” My stomach turned a somersault. I remembered the sound of a horse galloping fast over the ground, but had no idea it was Enoch.
“And Abram?”
“An ever-present thorn in my side, even when he is leaping through the centuries. I must admit that we made the mistake of underestimating his zeal. Though, I wish I had sired him.”
I pushed the quilt off my legs and swung them around, off the cot. My feet hit dry grass. “You’ve found him, though?”
“I’ve sent scouts to apprehend him. They’re following the trail of bodies he’s leaving as we speak. It seems that traveling through time makes a vampire rather ravenous.” Enoch’s eyes were warm despite their cool, green color. Asa’s warm brown ones, on the other hand, were cold.
“How do you know they’re his?”
He grinned. “I have my ways.”
“What year is it?”
“The year of our Lord, seventeen-hundred and seventy-seven. And to head your next question off at the pass, you landed in the colony of South Carolina. Those under my command are preparing to move, and you’ll be coming with us. I’ll ask you to please dress and meet me outside as soon as you are able. This tent will be taken down as soon as you step out of it.”
I stood up. If Asa hadn’t been blocking the door, I would have made a run for it.
“Do not think for a moment that I will treat you as softly as my brother does. I am in charge here. You will do as I say when I say it, or I will end you.” He glanced at something over my shoulder. “All the trappings you should require to appear like a lady in this time are hanging in the corner. Get dressed and join me outside. Do not bother trying to escape; I have a man posted at every corner of the tent. They’ve been ordered to shoot if you try anything, and they are very good at following orders.”
He looked at my tech suit, his eyes settling on my stomach. “This was supposed to protect you from us?” His knuckles grazed my arm. I jerked it away and took a step back. “I wonder… Will it protect you from a bullet? Not that I’d aim for your body, when I could take off your head instead.”
I stared at him emotionlessly until he gave a mirthless chuckle and turned on his heel. Just before he exited the tent, he paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, and when you step outside, my men will assume you are my fiancé. You will act the part… or you will never see my brother again.”
“Why would they think that?” I scoffed.
He gave me a look of warning before leaving the tent. His fiancé? Why in the hell would they think I planned to marry someone like him? Maybe in this time, it was safer for a woman to travel if they were married, or about to be.
Then I turned to see what he wanted me to wear. I expected a simple, plain, cotton or linen dress, or maybe a canvas bag with holes cut out for my arms, but no… Asa apparently expected his fiancé to wear something much finer. Hanging in the corner was a pale green gown with a bodice that looked impossibly tight. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to breathe in it, but maybe that was the point. A wide skirt flowed from the cinched waist. I tugged the gown off the hanger and cursed, realizing I would have to roll down the top of the tech suit and shimmy into the gown like I had the whore’s gown in Brutulo.
Would my suit’s fabric stop a bullet? Probably not, given how quickly Enoch tore through Abram’s. But the upper half of
my body would be completely unprotected in this gown, which Asa knew and planned to exploit, making his threat more potent.
Not to mention that he was in the military, and probably as good as shot as he boasted to be. From the number of bodies littering the battlefield I landed in, it seemed all of them were adept at killing.
Behind the gown hung a tangle of pale undergarments, the use of which I was clueless to. As I was wondering how I would possibly figure out the asinine contraptions, daylight swept into the tent and a young woman entered.
“Miss Eve, Captain Asa sent me to help you dress.”
She was beautiful. She looked to be a few years older than me with silken caramel skin and bright matching eyes.
“I’d really appreciate it. I have no idea what I’m…” I should probably keep my mouth shut.
She smiled, revealing two dainty fangs. My eyes flicked to the sliver of light on the ground from the space between the tent’s door flaps.
“How can you walk in sunlight?” I blurted.
“Sun don’t bother me unless my skin’s uncovered.” She held out her arm to show me her sleeve, and I realized she was covered from head to toe, including a wide-brimmed hat to shield her face and neck.
“Did Asa sire you?”
“My name’s Mary, and yes he did.” Her eyes raked down me. I held the suit top over my breasts. “He’s mad you followed us again, but I think he’ll simmer down soon enough. It’s dangerous for you out here. You aren’t one of us. Not that I blame you for wantin’ to be as close to that man as you can. He is…” Mary paused and a blush crept into her cheeks. “Well, I can see why you chase him, is all. But you won’t keep a man like Asa if he has to keep adjustin’ his plans just to keep you safe. You’re gonna have to learn to mind him, or else convince him to turn you,” she advised.
I wasn’t sure what to say. She was obviously crushing on the one who sired her. I wondered if that was common, a blood bond formed between the two. Then I wondered if Enoch had sired anyone just as appreciative…
“Captain Asa just wants what’s best for you, Miss. You’re lucky to be marryin’ him. He’s a good man.”
He is?
Maybe my eyebrows raised. Maybe my brow furrowed or one of them quirked. But she saw the question I managed not to say.
“Most white folks don’t like our kind.”
“What kind is that?”
“My skin and yours might be light, but we ain’t white,” she answered matter-of-factly. “But Captain Asa don’t believe in slavery. He set me free… in more ways than one. Now, I’d like to see anyone try to force me back into the fields.”
She gave me a defiant, proud grin, one that promised she would unleash hell on anyone who tried to hurt her again. And I could plainly see someone had. There was a haunted shadow in her eyes, the same Titus once told me he saw in mine. Maybe, I realized, we had more than our skin tone in common.
“The color of a person’s skin shouldn’t matter,” I argued.
I remembered when I first arrived at the Asset program, Kael analyzed our DNA before upgrading began. He said I was unique – a blend of all the world’s races – every single one. And my heritage, Kael hypothesized, might have been what made it easier for my DNA to accept his edits.
I wanted to tell her that in the future, a person’s skin color wouldn’t matter. All that mattered were that humans were human and they banded together against vampires, but I believed her when she said it mattered now. Apparently it mattered a lot, and I was suddenly thankful for Asa’s protection, which frankly, was something I never expected to be.
She looked at the dress I was wrinkling and laughed. “Let’s get you dressed. Asa tends to get impatient, but I suppose you know that all too well.”
Mary argued with me over my suit, but I won. It was staying on, at least partially. I knew if I removed it, Asa would take it and hide it away like he had my stakes. I wasn’t giving him my suit, too. It could still heal me, although slower with every leap, and still push me through time. It might be my only way out of here.
Mary was efficient, and she knew the purpose of each piece of my gifted trousseau. In no time, she stuffed me into a shift, layered it with stays that pinched my ribs together and pushed my breasts up, tugged a petticoat on over my suit, and then covered everything with the pale green gown. The sleeves were tight on my arms and the ruffles spilling out of them looked ridiculous, but Mary wore a satisfied look when she stepped back to appraise her efforts.
“Twirl around. Let me make sure everything looks all right.”
I twirled. But just because she asked.
“You look beautiful, Miss Eve.”
“Well, I wouldn’t if you hadn’t come to the rescue.”
She waved off the compliment, but we both knew it was true. Mary held back the flap of the tent and then her eyes caught on my bare feet. “Well, would you look at that! I thought Captain Asa would’ve thought of everything. I’ll have somethin’ to tease him over now.”
“I can go barefoot,” I countered.
She shook her head. “In this day and time you have to be ready to run, and you wouldn’t make it far without somethin’ on your feet. I have an extra pair of stockings and boots. I’ll be right back.”
She must not have hidden her vampire speed, because she was back before I could take a step, already bending to help me roll on a pair of thick stockings. I sat on the cot and laced the delicate, fabric boots. They were a size too small, but would work for now. I didn’t plan on staying with Asa long. If Enoch wasn’t here, I needed to get to him.
I appreciated her loan of the stockings and boots, but hoped I wouldn’t need to run. If I did, I’d probably tear the delicate soles apart.
Mary held back the flap of the tent and motioned for me to exit. Before I ducked under, I saw that the tech on the back of my hand was glowing. Travelling hadn’t damaged it this time.
When I emerged, I saw Asa waiting outside. True to his word, there was a man positioned at each corner of the tent, each toting a long-barreled rifle that was fitted with a bayonet at the end. As I exited the tent, those blades were quickly pointed at me.
Asa didn’t ask them to lower their weapons. Instead, he took his time, looking me over, making my skin crawl. “You did well, Mary,” he finally approved, smiling in her direction.
“Thank you, sir,” she beamed. “I’ll just finish packin’ my things.”
He nodded to her once in dismissal and held out a hand to me. “You look lovely, darling.”
I almost snarled at his use of the endearing term, but his eyes dared me to open my mouth and give his regiment any indication that I was anything but what he said I was. Asa wouldn’t hesitate to have me shot. He wanted all three of the Assets dead, which was why I wasn’t sure why he was keeping me alive for now. Probably because he wanted information.
I took his hand and ignored his crushing hold. He finally settled down after we’d passed a company of at least twenty men and women, all busy packing their supplies, taking down tents, and loading horses and wagons. His grip loosened and he put my hand in the crook of his arm. “You’ll ride with me.”
Tied to a low, wide branch that swept from the thick trunk toward the ground before turning toward the sky, was a beautiful horse whose mane and tail were the color of dark chocolate and Asa’s eyes.
“I want my stakes back,” I gritted.
Asa chuckled. “So you can stab me with them? I don’t think so.”
“They’re important to me.”
“And my life is important to me.”
“So, you’re afraid of me?”
He untied the horse and swung into the saddle, again extending his hand and loudly announcing, “Come, darling. It’s not safe to linger. The enemy will come for their dead, and we don’t want to be around when they do.”
“You’re afraid of them, too—OOF!”
He leaned down and scooped me up like a child, placing me on the saddle in front of him. Both my legs were on one
side, and I was basically sitting in his lap. “I can’t ride like this.”
“Oh, you’ve ridden before?”
“No, but I know I can’t ride like this. I want to ride like you, with one leg on either side.”
Asa pinned me with a look. “Ladies do not ride in that fashion.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not a lady.” I’d barely gotten the word out when he snapped the reins and kicked the horse’s belly. The horse trotted forward, and by the time we reached the others who had been packing only moments before, they were also mounted and ready to ride away. Most had their own horses, and one man was leading a few without riders. “Can’t I just have my own?”
Asa, I learned, didn’t mince words. “No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t travel with spare horses for those of you who might land at any given moment.”
“Gather around!” he yelled, and those under his command did as he asked. He was definitely in charge. I couldn’t tell unless I saw their fangs, but at least half of the people in this party were vampires. William made eye contact with me for a moment before glancing over my shoulder and quickly looking away.
“Stay together,” Asa barked. “Keep your eyes open and your weapons ready.”
The militia maneuvered their horses into a well-rehearsed formation. My eyes caught on William and his dark-haired friend, who were definitely human, and on Mary, who wasn’t anymore.
“No one believes I’m your fiancée,” I whispered.
“Actually, they do. You’ve followed us before, darling. Or have you forgotten?” he smirked. “It’s my duty to see you home unharmed.”
I didn’t know what game he was playing, but I needed answers. “Why would you care about protecting me?”
A growl rumbled from his chest, vibrating against my back. “Say another word, and I’ll let you find out how well you’d survive without my protection.”
He ordered a burly man to ride in the back of the line and alert them of any threat, while a vampire woman with hair so black it was almost blue took the lead. The others fell in line in front of, beside, and behind us. Asa was cloistered in the center of them all, and for some reason, I was with him as they surrounded us.
