Douglas’ eyes narrowed.
“Good day,” Kieren offered, moving toward the desk.
“Is it?” Douglas growled.
* * * * *
The Agency Home Base – 2264 A.D.: The return trip to the Agency’s home base was simplicity itself. Nayara and Ryan jumped together, arriving in the roped-off landing area at the time-marker Brenden had given them when they had left the Rockies twenty-four hours before. Brenden stood just on the other side of the rope, his arms crossed over his big chest. “About time,” he growled.
“It is, indeed,” Nayara said coolly, stepping over the rope. She looked over her shoulder at Ryan. “I need to get updates....”
“Go,” he told her.
She looked up at Brenden. “Brief me as we walk. What has happened while we were gone? Did we get any travelers back?”
The pair of them walked swiftly toward the fissure that led to the bigger chamber, talking.
Ryan stepped over the rope and walked swiftly through the irregular fissures and tunnels to the tiny pocket that Rob had assigned as Ryan’s personal space. Rob had shown a knack for arranging supplies and organizing people, and was swiftly becoming the default quartermaster. But space was limited and like everyone else, Ryan had no work space. He was expected to rub jowls with everyone in the main cavern, or find a corner in the landing cave, if Brenden could spare it.
Ryan ducked under the dusty canvas that provided some privacy and came face to face with himself.
The older version held out his hand. “I brought you a gift.” Sitting on his palm was Ryan’s Chinese puzzle box, which had for decades sat on his desk. Ryan thought back to the last time he had noticed it. “You took it, that night you first came back to warn me.”
“Yes.” The older Ryan stood up, and pushed the box into Ryan’s hand. “Although the warning changed nothing.”
“Was it intended to?” Ryan asked curiously. “Is this my way of ending a time wave of some sort?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“You seem to be free enough with other information,” Ryan growled, throwing his coat on the bedroll.
His older self grinned. “You’re thinking of Nayara.”
“You know I am.”
He cocked his head, studying Ryan. “You’re feeling the hangover from Gabriel’s little toy. Roiling emotions, melodramatic spikes in your physiology. I remember, now.”
“You’re here for a reason. Something about Gabriel, I’m sure. Tell me, and get lost,” Ryan growled.
His older self shook his head. “This has nothing to do with Gabriel, although he’s going to be making your life a merry hell in a little while.”
“Worse than what he has already? Thanks for the warning,” Ryan said dryly.
“Much worse,” the other said softly. Gravely.
Ryan stared at him, trying to formulate an answer. His older self grinned. “Heart just jump?” he asked.
“Why are you here?” Ryan said flatly.
“It’s about Nayara.” He cocked his head again. “Ah, your heart just leapt again.”
“I didn’t realize I could be so cruel,” Ryan ground out.
“It’s not cruelty. You’ll understand when you’re me.” Older Ryan settled himself on the edge of the desk. “I have another warning for you. I hope this time you’ll listen.”
* * * * *
Liping Village, East Yunnan Province, China, 2054 A.D.: There was no one in the front room of the office when Deonne arrived, although she could hear small sounds emerging from behind the closed door that led into the inner rooms of the old farmhouse. Curious because she had never seen beyond the front room before, Deonne strode over to the narrow door and thrust down on the mechanical handle to open it.
She stepped inside and looked around. The room had square, whitewashed walls and a tiny window with simple lead lights, that punched through the thick wall and provided a deep sill, where two Chinese dragons in jade were being used as book-ends to prop up nearly a dozen reading boards on their ends.
There was a slim and high bed in the far corner and an old fashioned wardrobe closet in some dark grained wood that looked real. The closet was open, showing it was empty.
The clothes that had once been stored in there were all on the bed, neatly folded.
Mariana had been rolling and stuffing garments into a big carrysack, but now she stood with a dirty green-colored something coiled in her fist, a small frown puckering the flesh between her eyes. “You’re back,” she said, and turned back to her packing.
“You’re leaving?”
Mariana stuffed the green thing into the depths of the carrysack with a little more force than was necessary. “I’m going to Rome. Twenty-third century Rome.”
“What’s in Rome?”
“The new headquarters for the Chronometric Agency.”
“But they’re—” and Deonne shut her jaw with a snap.
Mariana rolled her eyes. “I know there’s a secret base in Canada. But only vampires can go there. The Agency wants a public face, one the media and nets can focus on. One that humans can access, too. “
“And you’re going to work there?”
“Nayara wants me to keep helping her.” Mariana shrugged. “She just wants me to do it in Rome, not here.”
Deonne crossed her arms, pushing back the voluminous sleeves. “You’re going to be her assistant,” she concluded.
Mariana looked genuinely shocked. “I can’t be her assistant. I’m too—”
“Old, human or stupid?” Deonne guessed. “Or all three, perhaps?”
A faint blush touched Mariana’s cheeks. “I’m not the sort of person who does jobs like that. Personal assistant to the CEO of the agency?” She shook her head. “I’m just going to help out like Nayara asked me to, that’s all.”
“Don’t think of her as the CEO,” Deonne advised. “Think of her as Nia, the red-headed woman who works for the agency and has no personal life to speak of. It’ll help keep your panic down if you make her as human as possible.”
Mariana paused from closing the sack. “That’s what you do? Make everyone smaller in your mind?”
“I did once, when I first started in the business. Then I got used to the high-powered titles and people and I didn’t need to anymore.”
Mariana pursed her lips. “It doesn’t seem right to belittle anyone, not even in your mind.”
“I didn’t say belittle her. I said think of her as human.” Deonne frowned. “Or do you think being human is to be diminished?”
Mariana concentrated on closing her sack. “Besides, Nayara has a personal life.” She was changing subjects.
Deonne frowned, then relented and let the matter drop. “What sort of personal life does Nia have? She’s always in her office when she isn’t parading around in front of the cameras wearing the latest in vampire fashions.”
Mariana shook her head. “Never mind.” She was clamming up.
“No, really,” Deonne pressed. “The woman eats, lives and breathes the Agency. She doesn’t do anything else.”
“Because they aren’t ever there,” Mariana replied. Then she grimaced.
Deonne shut the door behind her and moved slowly over to where Mariana stood by the bed, skirting the low, comfortable chair that was the only other furniture in the room. “Who isn’t there?” she pressed. “You said ‘they’. She has more than one…what, Mariana? Lover? Cousin? Family?”
Mariana sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
“I have a confidentiality clause in my contract. I can’t speak to anyone about the Agency without written permission. So tell me about Nia’s private life.”
“Why?” Mariana asked reasonably. “What’s so important about you knowing?”
“I don’t know when an odd fact will come in useful. I just collect information when I can. I’m supposed to portray these people as good guys for the rest of the world. If there’s a big chunk of Nia’s life missing fro
m my perception of her, it could screw with my job. Private life secrets have a habit of turning messy when you least expect it.”
Mariana threaded her fingers together, making a big double fist. “I think that danger has past now.”
Deonne felt her jaw drop. “What did I miss?” she demanded. “Something big?”
Mariana cleared her throat. “It … could have been. She and Ryan—”
“Is that all?” Deonne sighed. “I could have predicted they’d get back together. That’s hardly the stuff of legendary secrets.”
“And Assemblyman Stelios,” Mariana added.
Deonne sank onto the chair behind her, her mind racing. “Cáel Stelios is their lover? Who knows?” She gripped her knees tightly. “My god, the political fallout alone, if this gets out! Who else knows about them?”
“I’m pretty sure Brenden does, because he spent all that time with them last year, while the book was being written. I think some of the other vampires at the agency probably suspect. Assemblyman Stelios was such a frequent visitor and Nayara was so very happy just before the station was destroyed. I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed.”
“In-house I can control. The vampires don’t matter.” Deonne leaned forward, curling her hands into fists as adrenaline surged. “Who outside the agency might guess?”
“No one,” Mariana said. “The Assemblyman is in Malacá for the current session of the Assembly and he’s been there since the station blew up.”
“Of course. They called an early, emergency session after Gabriel’s raid.” Deonne relaxed slightly. “I will need to speak to at least one of them when I next get the chance, but for now it sounds like they’re keeping it very sub-rosa.”
Mariana picked up another folded item. “I said no one was supposed to talk about it.”
“But you know and you’re human, and now I know. Even a weak mind reader could grab that knowledge from us whenever we ventured into their range.”
“There are no mind readers in this century,” Mariana pointed out.
“You’re going back home. There are mind readers there, and they are all enemies of the Agency.” Deonne gave her a small smile. “Not that I want to scare you, but you are aware of what happened to me in Sweden when I went back the other day?”
Mariana pressed her lips together. “Yes,” she said, her voice soft.
Deonne got to her feet. “If I were you, I’d stick very close to the Agency when I got back. And make friends with Pritti. She is like an umbrella in the rain.”
Mariana frowned. “The psi girl?” Then she turned silently back to her packing, concentrating on it.
“Or don’t,” Deonne told her. “It’s your life.” She headed for the door. “I stopped by to say thank you for getting rid of my fiddle-playing next door neighbor.”
“I did?”
“The apartment is empty and locked up tight.” Deonne shrugged. “Your polite diplomacy apparently worked.”
Mariana smiled, and this time the smile held wisdom, experience and cynicism. “I think the Agency’s money worked, not my diplomacy.”
Deonne laughed. “You were still the one to wield the credits. Congratulations, I think you’re getting the hang of it.” She opened the door.
“The hang of what?”
“Thriving.”
Chapter Fourteen
Universal Warden Headquarters, San Francisco, 2264 A.D.: There was no warning. The perimeter alarms didn’t sound. There were no raised voices and no shots fired. The first hint Kieren got that trouble was heading his way was when the door of the wardroom opened and strangers walked in.
The Wardens in the room all reacted with the lightning fast speed that had been trained into them. Although no one was permitted to carry arms on the base, there was a locker with emergency weapons in one corner. Two wardens leapt for the cabinet, while everyone else moved to intercept the new comers.
There were only three of them, but over their shoulder Kieren could see bodies of Wardens spread across the long barracks room, some lying very still in their beds and others crumpled to the floor.
The three strangers were civilians. They wore street clothes. One was a woman, and the two men were slight, one of them elderly. They would normally be considered a non-threat, except for the bodies behind them and that they had breached the base security without raising a single whisper of concern.
“No, don’t!” Kieren called out in warning as his colleagues all advanced toward the trio.
The three invaders stood with their hands at their sides. They didn’t flinch or move as the wardens closed in. But the wardens got no closer than a few feet. The nearest looked like he was tossed, high and hard, to slam into the wall of armored lockers. He slid to the ground as two more were thrown clear of the group around the threesome.
Each of the three turned their heads to focus on one warden at a time and that warden was shoved, thrown, or folded into a tired heap on the floor.
The last wardens standing were Kieren and the two who had headed for the weapons locker. They were still opening the door, which proved how little time had passed since the door blew inwards.
The threesome turned their heads to look at the pair, who had the door open now and were reaching inside for weapons.
The wardens were flung like confetti through the air to slam against two different walls. They stayed very still once they fell to the floor, leaving Kieren standing alone at the table where he had been sitting.
He looked at the three people. “Why not simply make me forget? Or force me to leave the barracks and deal with me outside? You have that power. I saw what you did in Sweden.”
“We don’t attack our own,” the woman said. Her voice was rough, as if she didn’t use it very often. “The humans we have dealt with here will recover. We needed to clear your way for you.”
“Me?” Kieren asked.
“You are one of us,” the older man said. He had an accent that Kieren couldn’t place. From somewhere in Asia, he thought, although the man was Caucasian.
“I’m not one of you,” Kieren told them. “I’m not anything.”
The woman glanced at the old man, then lifted her hand, palm up, toward Kieren.
Images poured into his mind. It felt like he was recalling a memory, except that the images were strange to him. They rolled on, revealing a series of stop motion images that told a story over and over again of people who had discovered their unique powers under extraordinary, highly emotional circumstances. A young boy who evaporated all the water in his hated bath, just by looking at it. The high school sweetheart, who gave her boyfriend an embolism when she caught him with another girl. The woman whose children had grown and left home, who collapsed her entire house when she was given the news of her husband’s death. And the woman who was sharing these stories with Kieren, the day she learned from her father’s thoughts that he was going to kill her when he slid into her bed like he did most nights.
They were all heartbreaking stories. Kieren crossed his arms again. “So?” he asked.
You were the same, the woman told him without moving her lips.
“You’ve got the wrong guy,” Kieren assured her. “Wardens are trained to be unemotional. Hysterics are inefficient.”
Denial does not remove the truth.
“Now we are aware of you, we have made arrangements,” the older man said, using his voice to speak.
“This was an arrangement?” Kieren asked, spreading his hands to encompass the still, crooked figures of the Wardens.
“It was necessary to release you,” the man replied. “They are not permanently damaged. By clearing your path, we have allowed you to leave without complications.”
Kieren tamped down his surprise and dismay. “Leave?” he repeated, although in his gut, he already knew what they meant. He just couldn’t encompass the idea that they really intended to do this, that it wasn’t all a game.
“To join us,” the woman replied.
The older man gave her
a sad glance. “He cannot join us. He is already one of us.” He looked back at Kieren. “You must take up your rightful role. We can arrange things here so that they will never know we were here.”
“Who is us?” Kieren demanded.
“You know who we are,” the man said. “We are like you.”
“Do you have a name?”
The three of them looked at each other, and Kieren had the strongest hunch that they were talking. Silently.
He shivered.
“We do not have a name,” the woman said, her strange voice blurring some of her consonants. If she did most of her talking in her head, it would explain why she couldn’t speak properly using her mouth. “We have always just been.”
“I’m supposed to refer to you as ‘you’? Or should I just call you the scary fuckers?” It was crude, but Kieren needed to see some emotion in their faces. Anything at all, including irritation at his rudeness, would be better than the blank stares he was getting from them. It was unnerving. So was their confidence. They were complacent about the fact that they had just brought an entire barracks filled with Wardens under their complete control. Kieren was used to being the one with the upper hand. Two Wardens per situation was considered overkill, but multiple Wardens reassured their clients.
Again, the trio looked at each other. Communing.
The woman turned her head toward Kieren once more. “Some call us the Jabbar. We do not.”
Kieren recognized the name. It was the Arabic word for powerful.
“I’m not going with you,” he said, keeping his tone even and devoid of anger. He didn’t want these people pissed at him.
“You have a rightful place among us,” the old guy said. “You cannot refuse it.”
“I’m not refusing it,” Kieren told him. “I’m just choosing not to step into it.”
“But…you have no choice,” the man told him.
“The fuck, I don’t,” Kieren growled. “Watch me.”
The younger man, who until now had not spoken a word, straightened and lifted his hand in an imperious “halt” gesture. He faced Kieren squarely. “We will not force you. We do not need to. We will leave you to try and live your human life, until you are ready for the protection and family you will need.”
Romani Armada (Beloved Bloody Time) Page 15
