“What?” Taylor asked, confused.
Veris had already opened the door and stepped out. She hurried after him and shaded her eyes against the blast of early morning sunbeams. It was still cool, although the sun was bright and direct.
She stepped carefully down the chalet steps onto the gravel. This chalet was one of dozens lining the broad gravel path. The path to the left led to the central public rooms. The dining and dance hall. The administration offices. The theatrette. Or so the hand-lettered wooden signposts said.
To the right, the path passed among more chalets. Taylor turned that way, for the scream had come from there, and it put the sun to her back. Then she saw the reason for the screaming and concern.
A short man with black hair and dark olive skin and black eyes walked down the path. His pace was slow because everyone stood watching him approach, frozen by fear or horror. They reared and scurried away when he drew close.
The man held a curved sword in his hand, and the blade was red with blood which dripped from the point.
“Ah, fuck…” Veris breathed as Taylor reached him. He sounded tired.
The man lifted his hand to point at Veris. Everyone turned to where Veris and Taylor stood at the bottom of the steps.
“You!” the man cried.
“Who is he?” Taylor whispered, sotto voce.
“Jasmine’s husband,” Veris murmured back.
Shiraz strode toward Veris, the sword lifting, while everyone scattered and ran, many of them screaming. Shiraz’s finger still pointed at Veris. The finger was bloody, too.
“You!” Shiraz demanded. “Tell me where I will find Peter Tremaine. You are his friend. You know where he is, now he has sullied my wife and made her impure. Tell me now, I demand it!”
He spoke with a strong middle-eastern accent.
Taylor’s gut tightened as she realized what had happened. Even in the twenty-first century, in the more traditional Muslim countries husbands were still legally entitled to have their wives stoned to death if they thought them to be adulterers.
This was 1958. Shiraz considered it perfectly reasonable to see to the matter himself, with whatever he had to hand. In this case, a scimitar.
And now he wanted Peter Tremaine’s head.
Veris didn’t move as Shiraz drew closer. He reached out to Taylor and pushed her behind him, instead. “I have no idea where Peter is,” he told Shiraz. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you while you’re holding that blade. Justice works differently here, Shiraz. Put the sword down and let the police take care of it.”
“I want Peter Tremaine!” Shiraz screamed, his face turning red. He brought the sword up and Taylor flinched backward.
Veris didn’t move. “You’ve vacationed in America every year for ten years, Shiraz. You must know you’ve broken the laws of this land. You really think anyone will simply hand Peter over to you?”
Shiraz gave a strained cry, the sword lifting into a striking position. Madness shone in his eyes.
The quiet ‘snick’ and whizzing sound came at the same time Shiraz dropped the sword. The little man’s knees buckled, and he clutched at his chest, where blood bloomed across his white silk shirt.
Then his eyes grew blank. He fell forward onto the gravel.
Veris turned and shoved Taylor toward the chalet. “Sniper! You’re human. Run!”
She turned and sprinted, her heart screaming. The heels of the pumps wouldn’t let her climb the steps to the chalet quickly enough. She would be a target for too many long seconds as she climbed them. She continued running along the gravel, heading for the nearest narrow alley between the chalets.
When she reached it, an arm swept out, and nearly plucked her off her feet and pulled her into the alley.
Rafe kept her on her feet and held her steady until she regained her balance. “You’re fine. You’re safe. Just stay here a minute until the panic subsides. Then we can go back to my chalet.”
Taylor pressed a hand against the wooden siding of the chalet, to prop herself up and recover her breathing. She was shaking badly.
On the gravel path beyond, more screaming and shouting sounded, spreading concentric circles of alarm out across the resort.
From even farther away, Taylor could hear the low note of police sirens—not the electronic warble of her time, but a winding, low sound from a wind-driven klaxon.
“Who the hell killed Shiraz?” she breathed. “A sniper in the Adirondacks in the fifties… Nothing makes sense, this jump.”
Rafael rested his hand on her shoulder. “Who do you think did it? Sydney, of course.”
Rafael took the long, roundabout way back to his chalet, avoiding as many people as possible. “We want to be able to say we were in the chalet all night, and didn’t emerge until the panic started,” Rafe said.
Taylor nodded, as if this made complete sense to her. “Veris…” she said, looking over her shoulder.
“He’s survived greater troubles, and you don’t know him in this time—not well enough to go to his aide,” Rafe replied. “Play your role, remember?”
“Is that what you’re doing now?” she asked. “Unsnarling a loop?”
“Wait until we’re behind a door,” Rafe replied.
When Rafe closed the chalet door behind them, Taylor’s question was wiped out by fresh surprise, for Sydney sat on the big bed.
Sydney calmly broke down a long rifle and put the pieces into a large, hard-sided metal briefcase laying open beside her. She wore twenty-first century jeans and flats, and a striped Breton teeshirt with long sleeves. Her hair was tied in a messy bun at the top of her head, ice blonde tendrils escaping at the edges.
“Compound jump,” Taylor breathed, cataloging the clothes and the modern rifle and briefcase. “That’s how you could bring the Parabellum back here.”
Sydney nodded and snapped the briefcase closed and looked at Rafael. “Peter’s still out. I peeked in on the way back. The manager will find him apparently still deeply asleep, when he gets there.”
Rafael took off his sports jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “Have a seat, Taylor. Drink?” He went over to a low, long cupboard which held a silver tray and decanters, crystal glasses, an ice bucket and a vase with a chrysanthemum in it.
Taylor’s throat tightened. “Scotch.” She sat on the end of the bed, for the armchair and the dressing table stool both had clothes piled on them.
“No alcohol,” Sydney said shortly. “They’ll smell it on your breath.”
Rafael lifted a pitcher with orange liquid. “Fresh orange juice,” he said, and poured, and held it out to her.
Taylor sipped. The orange juice had actual orange pieces still in it. And a pip.
“Drain the glass,” Sydney told her.
Taylor drank. She knew what Sydney and Rafael were doing. They were compensating for her human physiology. Sugar would offset Taylor’s shock.
“He’s here,” Rafael said softly and moved to the door. He opened it.
Veris stepped through. He glanced at Sydney and raised a brow. “Ah…!” he said, with a tone of dawning understanding. Then he crouched in front of Taylor. His gaze moved over her face and downward.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “How did you know to come here?”
“Your pheromones.” He stroked her wrist and got back on his feet. “Taylor’s calm and now I’m here. Give. It’s time to explain what is going on.”
Rafael nodded.
Veris glanced at Sydney again. Then he rolled his eyes, with a sound of disgust, as if he had just figured out what he should have known all along. “A double loop,” he said, his tone flat. “We’re on a lateral jump. We’re using our earlier bodies. You’re not.”
“And that’s where the problem sets in,” Rafael said. “Taylor, brace yourself.”
Taylor laughed. “I’m too confused to do anything but listen and try and make sense of it.”
Rafael nodded. “Veris, what do you remember of the first time you were here? Your memory will
still be of the unchanged past. It won’t change until you jump back.”
“I don’t remember someone taking Shiraz out with a sniper rifle,” Veris said, his voice a rumble in his chest.
“Because I didn’t, the first time,” Sydney said. “You killed him.”
Taylor drew in a breath. “Veris…?”
Veris wore a wary, chagrined expression. He grimaced. “At least I didn’t take him out in public with a bullet which hasn’t been invented yet.”
“They won’t find it,” Sydney said, her tone certain. “I was very close. The bullet rifled through him and kept going, much farther than ballistics experts of this decade would think to search.”
“You killed Shiraz?” Taylor asked, unwilling to let the point go. “Why?”
Veris looked at her. The wariness in his eyes was growing.
“This is why I said you must brace yourself, Taylor,” Rafael said. “The first time he was here, Veris spent the night with Jasmine Shiraz. The next morning, her husband slaughtered her when she returned to their chalet.”
Taylor pressed her hand to her belly, as tension made it swirl. She couldn’t look at Veris. She could acknowledge intellectually that the original Veris of this time hadn’t known her. A night with another woman was nothing. Brody was off in France doing the same thing. It was an arrangement which had let their relationship flourish for centuries.
However, intellectual acknowledgement was different from accepting it in her gut and heart. Especially when Veris’ night with the woman had caused her death.
“He beat her nearly every week,” Veris growled. “The bruises showed when she took off her clothes. She was thirteen when her family had her married to him, and every month she failed to conceive, the beatings grew worse. Yet she wouldn’t consider running away from him because it would be dishonorable. So yeah, I killed the bastard for her.” Veris grimaced. “I did it a year later, in Tehran, when there would be no chance of connecting it to here. It was at least quick and clean, which was more than Shiraz gave his wife.”
Rafe nodded. “He’s the nephew of a caliph, and claimed diplomatic immunity, which let him escape the murder charge, here.”
Taylor sighed, horror swirling through her.
“The second time you came back here, Veris,” Sydney said, “you, of course, did not spend the night with Jasmine because Taylor was here, too.”
Veris rubbed the back of his neck. “This is the third time I’ve been here?”
Rafael nodded. “Third for you, second Taylor. Because you used lateral jumps, your earlier selves have no memory of the time you were here. It has the effect of wiping the second jump from your memory, Veris. Which is probably just as well.”
His tone was grim.
“What happened?” Veris asked, his voice just as dark.
“It’s what didn’t happen,” Sydney said. “Shiraz didn’t kill Jasmine. He didn’t die a year later.”
Veris crossed his arms again. “Who did he become, then?”
Sydney crossed her arms, too. “He beat Jasmine to death only six months later. That was in Iran, so nothing was done about it because he claimed she was an adulterer. It is most likely true.”
“So she died, either way?” Taylor asked, appalled.
“Who is Shiraz?” Veris demanded. “What did his failure to die set off?”
“Shiraz remarried in 1965 and had a son, Ramin, in the same year,” Sydney continued. “Forty years later, Ramin was radicalized. He spent thirteen years drifting from terror cell to organization to outfit, until he was tapped to lead a team of the best fighters. They smuggled themselves aboard a US Airforce troop carrier, inside the coffins of fallen soldiers, to take control of the plane and the Sarin gas cargo it carried.”
Taylor gasped. “Jesse Hall was on that plane!”
“She was,” Sydney said. “And because Shiraz survived and had a son, Ramin killed Jesse and successfully completed his mission. The plane crashed in the greater London area and killed over four million people.”
The silence was thick and pensive. Beyond the chalet walls, Taylor could hear voices lifted in concern. There was no fear or panic in the voices anymore. The situation was under control. The police sirens had stopped, too. The police were here, investigating.
“We had to come back a third time and fix it,” Taylor said, her voice hoarse.
Sydney and Rafael both nodded.
“That’s why you pushed Jasmine into Peter’s arms,” Veris said, with a sigh.
“It didn’t take a lot of pushing,” Rafael admitted. “I mentioned he was the third richest man in England and was the heir of a duke, to boot. She almost levitated into his lap after that.”
Taylor rubbed at her temples. “Why did Sydney shoot Shiraz? Why not let Peter take care of it, instead? He basically stepped into Veris’ shoes last night.”
“Because he didn’t take care of it at all,” Veris said. “He wouldn’t. Peter would have considered it none of his business.” He examined Sydney. “Exactly how many times have you and Rafe been back here, watching the scenarios unfold?”
“A few times,” Sydney admitted. “Each time we would go back to find disaster waiting for us and would return here to have another go. We don’t know if this will work, either. We’re running out of options. The sniper rifle seemed the most certain option. Trying to assassinate Shiraz in Iran leaves too much time for alternatives to sprout. We used Alex’s sleepy cocktail to knock Peter out and poured scotch over him and down his throat. He will appear to be sound asleep, recovering from a heavy night of booze, when the manager and the police arrive at his chalet to question him. And we had to make sure you were right there where everyone could see you were clearly not the shooter, Veris, because the police would have looked at you, next.”
Something in Sydney’s tone made Taylor’s belly tighten and her breath to shorten. “How do you know they would do that?”
“Because they did,” Rafael said. “The second time you came here, you two jumped back to our time and left the older version of Veris with no idea of what happened and no way to account for his time. He was charged and found guilty. Of course, he escaped prison less than a year later and was never seen again in the United States. It led to neither he nor Brody living in Los Angeles at the turn of the millennium…and they never met you, Taylor.”
Taylor wrapped her arms around her middle. “It’s a disaster, no matter what happens,” she breathed.
“This time, we are keeping everything as close to the outcomes of the first time around,” Sydney said, in agreement. “Which meant there was no way to save Jasmine.”
“We tried that, too,” Rafe said, and shuddered.
Taylor didn’t ask what had happened when they tried. Her nerves were already shredded. Instead, she turned to Veris and rested her head against his shoulder. His arm came around her. She could hear his heart beating far too fast. As a vampire, his heart shouldn’t have been beating at all.
“We can’t leave here,” Veris said, his voice rumbling against her ear. “We have to play this out, until the police stop watching. I have to go back to being Vaughn Gardener, and Taylor, you and Rafe must be an unhappy couple the morning after.”
“Then I can tell the police I was with you,” Taylor finished.
Sydney got to her feet and picked up the silvered metal briefcase. “And I have to get the hell out of here before the police knock on the door, which they will do any minute.” She moved over to Rafe and kissed him soundly.
Rafe took his time returning the farewell kiss. Taylor turned her face back into Veris’ shoulder. She could tell from the lack of movement in Veris’ body that he watched the pair, unembarrassed by the display of affection.
“Be safe,” Sydney murmured.
Taylor heard the floorboard squeak as Sydney jumped. Then Veris shifted her away from him and kissed her as soundly as Rafael had kissed Sydney.
Her heart pattering faster than usual, Taylor smiled at him.
Veris glan
ced at Rafael. “Two days, maybe more. We’ll play it by ear. Vaughn Gardener and you should probably become friends, so we can talk more easily.”
“After a suitable period of snarling at each other over my wife,” Rafael replied.
“Not too much snarling. This is almost the swinging sixties, remember.” Veris grinned. “If I become friends with you and still get to dance with your wife, my reputation as a ladies’ man will be set in concrete.”
“Slut,” Taylor chided him.
Veris kissed her once more. “Blame the dress,” he breathed in her ear. He eased the chalet door open, glanced in all directions, then slid out and closed the door.
Taylor turned to Rafael.
He put his hands in his pockets and raised his brow. “What is it you didn’t say, a few moments ago?”
“You knew I was biting my tongue, then?”
“You have a tell,” Rafael said, his mouth turning up at the corner. “Decades of courtroom cross-examination…I know when someone is holding back. Veris is gone, now.”
Taylor nodded. “You and Sydney said you were trying to make things happen as close to the way they happened the first time, to make it turn out right. Only, if you were trying to repeat the first time, why didn’t you push Jasmine on to Veris, the one she really wanted, until she found out about Peter’s money and title?”
“Because you were there,” Rafael said.
“I had to be here. I’m the jumper,” Taylor said patiently. “You didn’t even try to make that part of last night the same as before. You dangled me in front of Veris on the dance floor, so he would have an excuse to cross the floor and ask me to dance. You deliberately screwed with the way it happened the first time.”
“Not me, Taylor,” Rafael said gently. “That was Veris’ doing. In between the second and this last jump, when we knew how badly things had screwed up, and were trying to figure out how to fix things, Sydney argued he should do exactly what he had done the first time.”
Taylor’s heart squeezed. “He refused…”
Rafael nodded. “He couldn’t bring himself to sleep with Jasmine. Not even to save four million lives. Not even if we arranged it so you would never find out. He flatly refused to consider it.”
More Time Kissed Moments Page 10
