Ryan moved slowly to the center of the courtyard, then turned an even slower full circle, taking in every single feature. A bird called out from the trees overhead and he looked up. “A storm petrel,” he said, his tone one of wonder.
He spent a long minute studying the tableau of stones in the corner opposite the tree tunnel. It looked ancient. The jagged rocks were flat. One large rock the size of a table laid horizontally, while smaller flat rocks half buried in the ground held it up. Grass grew around the feet and mold covered the flat sides. The arrangement might have endured millennia in that spot, except that a month ago, this cavedium had been empty of everything except hard-baked dirt broiling under the summer sun.
Stepping into the courtyard was like stepping back through time to medieval Ireland. This was the land that Ryan had been raised in. Cáel had spent three magical weeks there, travelling back and forth through a century of Irish history.
“What’s through there?” Ryan asked, nodding toward the green doors on the other side of the tunnel.
“Your new quarters,” Nayara said. “And mine and Cáel’s, if you want to share with us. I had the south wing renovated. It’s yours, if you want it.”
Ryan held out his arm. “Come here.” His voice was rough. “Cáel….”
Cáel stepped willingly into the circle of his arm as Nayara took the other. Ryan pulled them close and pressed his face into Cáel’s shoulder. He was trembling.
Cáel held them both and tried not to think of anything except how much he loved them.
* * * * *
They argued strenuously over what bed and what room would be whose in the massive suite of rooms off the recreated pocket of Ireland. It was an academic argument because Ryan and Nayara invariably used his bed. Cáel was the only one that needed to sleep, which usually came after sex. At least one of them would linger until he was asleep, monitoring his sleep patterns and ensuring he wasn’t disturbed. Sleep had never been easy for him but it was a more regular companion if Ryan or Nayara were with him.
The overly-feminine room with the swags and brocade was clearly meant for Nayara and even Ryan wrinkled his nose at the excessive detail. “You’ve never outgrown Byzantium, have you?”
“Only where no one can see it.” Nayara looked out through the window into the courtyard. All the rooms looked upon the courtyard, but Ryan’s was the one with the doors through the tunnel, which was what Nayara had probably intended all along.
Ryan looked through the window, too. “It’s perfect,” he said with a sigh.
Mariana found them there. “Gabriel!” she cried and instantly turned to hurry back to where she had come from. The command center, Cáel assumed.
He looked at Nayara and Ryan.
“Go,” Ryan said shortly.
Nayara wrapped her arm around Ryan’s waist. “I’ll jump to my office. You go ahead,” she told Cáel. “Keep them calm!”
Fine advice when his own heart was thumping in a sickly, over-taxed way. Why was Gabriel back? Why so soon? It had only been a few days since he had encouraged Janes and Johns everywhere to sleep. Could he not wait for his demands to be met?
He doesn’t have time to wait, Cáel reminded himself. Frame and meta analyses of the few times Gabriel had appeared on air had concluded that he was dying. Kieran, who had the dubious privilege of having been briefly inside Gabriel’s mind, had concurred.
Cáel was almost running by the time he reached the big doors to the command center and they slid open for him. He almost collided with people who were standing just inside the doors because there wasn’t anywhere else to go. The room was full.
This wouldn’t do. He took a deep breath and projected his voice like he did in the Assembly. “Everyone but senior personnel, please move through to the admin area next door! There are screens there and we need the room here! Thank you!”
He caught some puzzled looks sent his way, but the majority of people in the room began to move toward the other doors that connected the command center with the administrative offices.
Someone increased the volume on all the screens and Gabriel’s voice rose above the soft sounds they made as they left.
“…failed to understand how serious we are. There has been no attempt made to meet our simple request. No meetings have been called. No referendums of citizens in democracies around the world have been scheduled.”
“Mariana, stay here,” Brenden said shortly.
Cáel looked around. Mariana and Laszlo—Billy, he corrected himself—were moving out through the doors along with everyone else.
Mariana shook her head. “We’ll be underfoot. I can see out here just as well.” She shepherded Billy through the doors and Brenden scowled and looked back at the screen on the table in front of him.
Cáel couldn’t help but approve of the new trio. Billy had been morphing the last few days into a quick-witted, useful member of Brenden’s security staff, but he had already asked Nayara to be trained as a traveler. Brenden had not changed his demeanor, not even if one of the two was nearby. Cáel suspected that Brenden was deliberately growing gruffer and ‘professional’ in fear that someone would accuse him of favoritism or worse, vulnerability, if he showed any outward affection.
He would learn, but now was not the time.
Cáel looked up at the screens overhead as Gabriel’s short pause for breath ended. “Perhaps we have not been specific enough with our request,” Gabriel said. The droop to one side of his mouth seemed to be even more pronounced than last time.
The doors to the offices opened once more and Ryan and Nayara hurried in. Ryan was clutching his cane, but he wasn’t using it and he was walking at nearly normal speed.
Cáel glanced around. No one was paying any attention to them at all. Everyone was watching the screens. Only the most senior people stood around the table, as requested. Rob and Christian, Deonne and Justin, Kieran at the end and off to one side. Rhydder was in the corner, disassociating himself from the agency people. His shadow, the very odd Llewellyn, was not here, which was appropriate. Marley, the human doctor, stood with Fahmido, both of them pressed closer to the wall and out of the way of the table. Brenden stood at the top of the table, his arms crossed, the scowl still in place.
“It is possible that you simply do not understand what it is that we want,” Gabriel continued. “We know that the wheels of government turn slowly and we can tolerate a reasonable delay in processes. But that does not mean we will wait indefinitely for action. There are steps that can be put into place immediately. The scheduling of an emergency session of the Worlds Assembly would be one such signal that your intentions are good.”
“He’s joking, isn’t he? He really thinks the other eight worlds are going to make the trip to Earth just to discuss his fear of dying without a legacy?”
It was Justin’s voice, rich with sarcasm, but Cáel thought he had nailed Gabriel’s character quite neatly.
“Gabriel’s argument isn’t without merit,” Ryan said quietly, although everyone could hear him. Of course it would be Ryan who defended him. He had spent two hundred years fighting for exactly the same rights, but for vampires.
“We would expect that such a meeting could be arranged and announced to the public within three days,” Gabriel added.
Cáel caught his breath. It was an impossible deadline! Demetrios, the heavy world, was on the far end of its ellipsis, which put it twelve light years away. Just establishing communications to discuss a meeting would take over three days to set up via transponders.
“…and we would expect the meeting itself to take place before the equinox.”
Nearly everyone in this room was old enough to remember when the world measured the passage of time by the movement of the sun and the stars, the ending of seasons and the fall of the equinoxes and solstices. There was some soft whispering.
“Jesus wept, he wants this done by the end of September?” someone muttered.
Cáel kept his gaze on the screen and his heart started to h
urt. He knew that Gabriel had just doled out the carrot. Now he was about to introduce the whip and Gabriel’s brand of persuasion was potent.
True to form, Gabriel paused and his eyes filled with melancholy. “I am sad that it has come to this. I thought that vampires and the Chronometric Conservation Agency were your friends. I thought they would have consulted with you and explained that I mean what I say. Your lack of action forces me to demonstrate my good faith.”
“Gods above,” Brenden whispered, “here it comes.”
Gabriel stared into the camera. “Mary, are you listening? I want you to kill yourself. Don’t let anyone stop you.”
Every screen in the room went blank.
Cáel just had time to think he’s stepped up the stakes!, when someone screamed, outside in the admin offices.
More screaming.
“Stop her! God, stop her!”
“Knock her down!”
The doors swished open and Mariana walked into the room. She was looking straight ahead.
Horror spilled through Cáel as he realized what was happening. Mariana was responding to Gabriel’s command. As he watched, his brain locked by shock, Billy threw himself through the doors, a flying tackle designed to bring Mariana to the ground.
But something must have warned her—possibly the sound of the doors re-opening behind her. She took a large step to one side and Billy missed her completely. He landed on the tiles, his breath forced out of him in a heavy gasp.
Mariana turned calmly to her right, then stepped through the open door of Brenden’s office. The office with the wall of ancient weapons in it.
“Brenden!” Billy cried hoarsely. “Stop her!”
Brenden moved faster than Cáel thought was even possible but Mariana had already palmed the controls and the door was closing. He grabbed the handle and yanked, using his entire bodyweight and every ounce of his considerable strength. For a moment Cáel thought the door hesitated. But it was powered by hydraulics controlled by the security network, which was a monster of a different kind.
The door shut. Brenden threw himself against it, over and over. Billy hammered the glass wall next to it. The walls, the door, shivered under the impact. But this was the security area. They weren’t simple glass. They were transparent plasteel, guaranteed to withstand anything short of a nuclear blast.
Marley slapped the table top, summoning a broad-band communique channel. “Gawaine! Hack the security network! Now!” she cried. “We have to open the doors. All the doors!”
People were still screaming, shouting useless instructions at each other. They were pressing up against the clear wall, begging Mariana to stop.
It was as if she couldn’t hear or see them. She calmly moved around the desk, her gaze on the wall, then reached up on tiptoe for the sword and pulled it off the pegs. It was a short sword like Roman swords, but the ends flared out so that it was wider toward the tip.
Cáel recognized the shape. It was Brenden’s sword. From Sparta.
Brenden was a man possessed. If anyone could have broken down the door, he would have, for he was ramming his shoulder against it with vampire enhanced strength. But he had helped design the security area and the doors were invulnerable. Anything he thought to do now, he would have already designed a prevention for it.
Mariana turned to face them, the sword in her hands.
Billy pressed his hand against the glass. “Please, I beg you….” he whispered.
Brenden pummeled his big fist against the door, his voice hoarse as he screamed at her to put the sword down.
Mariana turned the sword in her hands so the point was facing her. A single tear slid from her eyes and rolled down her cheek. Then she pushed the sword into her stomach and wrenched it upwards, toward her heart.
She folded over the blade and slid to the floor. Blood pooled under her, spreading out toward the door.
The command center grew still. No one moved. The only sound was Deonne’s soft sobbing, muffled by Justin’s shoulder.
Cáel didn’t know how long they stood, unable to move, barely able to breathe for the horror and despair choking them. But sometime later there was a mechanical click in the walls and the ceiling and the doors opened with pneumatic hisses.
All the doors.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2265 A.D.
Billy realized that he was leaning up against another plasteel wall but his tired, aching heart didn’t care. He watched Marley and Fahmido through the wall as they worked over Mariana and wondered if they knew they were standing and walking in a pool of blood.
Mariana’s blood.
Twenty minutes had elapsed since Brenden had burst through his office door, swept up Mariana and jumped to the surgical unit with her in his arms. Rob had grabbed Marley and jumped, too.
Everyone else in the command center ran through the villa to the unit, to arrive as Marley was pushing Brenden out through the door and as Fahmido pulled out trays of instruments and more.
Marley had been working on Mariana ever since. Her face was an impenetrable mask but as time stretched out, Billy felt a chill creep into his bones.
Everyone ranged behind them was completely still and silent. No one shuffled. No one even cleared their throat. Nayara had ordered everyone except essential staff out of the observation area, but there was still a small crowd watching Marley do her work.
At the twenty-three minute mark, Marley straightened up from her lean over the operating table and looked at the atomic clock on the wall.
Brenden made a breathless, choking sound and sat heavily on the bench, his head bowed.
“Go back in time,” Billy said. He could barely form the words, for his throat was aching. “Go back and stop her before it starts. Put her in an arrival chamber—they’re soundproof!”
“We can’t change the past,” Brenden said slowly.
“She’s dead!” Billy cried. “Why not for her? Brenden, for god’s sake, you love her, too!”
“The past is what we have sworn to preserve,” Ryan said quietly. He was leaning heavily on his cane. “This is part of it. We cannot go back and save her, because we didn’t.” His expression was wretched.
Nayara gripped Brenden’s shoulder.
Billy shook his head. “There has to be another way. Turn her! It’s not too late for that.”
“Does Mariana want to be turned?” Nayara asked gently. “Did she leave a will? Has she spoken to you about it? We can’t turn anyone without their express request.”
Billy pressed his fingers to his eyes, helplessness making him dizzy. Then he remembered and shoved his hand into his jeans pocket. “How express do you need?” he demanded and held the photo out. “That was taken in the future. Somewhere in the future—we don’t know when, but it doesn’t matter. Mariana hasn’t changed. Not at all. She looks the same in this photo as she did yesterday. She’s alive in this photo.”
Nayara glanced at Ryan.
Brenden lifted his head, hope dawning in his eyes. “There’s only one way she could look exactly the same. She’s a vampire in that photo.”
Ryan gripped the cane, his knuckles turning white. He studied the photo. “We have to make that future come to pass,” he said. “Willfully going against what we know must happen would be as irresponsible as deliberately changing history.”
Brenden got to his feet.
“Nayara will turn her,” Ryan said sharply. “You cannot and neither should Billy.”
“Why not?” Billy demanded.
“Because you love her,” Nayara said gently. “When she goes through her first blood fever, will you have the strength to do whatever you must to stop her from feeding from a human? Will you have the courage to watch her agony? For that is the role of the maker and I would not put you through that, not with Mariana.”
Brenden sat down again. Heavily. “Just hurry,” he whispered.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Scottish Highl
ands, 2035 A.D.
They hired a babysitter for Jack—an agency member with strong psi-talents, who couldn’t be got around by a two-year-old with budding skills of his own. Once he was settled and playing happily, the three of them jumped back to Scotland of the twenty-first century, to a year free of wars and petty conflicts. The highland air was crisp and refreshing after the belting heat of Rome in August.
For several hours they hiked through the glens, not following any particular trail, or heading in any specific direction. As the day was heading toward sunset, Tally found a flat rock high on one side of the valley they were in and sat down. It was warm from the sunshine.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your minds?” she asked the two of them.
Rob rested his boot on a smaller rock at her feet and his hand on his knee. The kilt rode up in a most enticing way, but Tally ignored it and looked at him, waiting.
Lee gave a heavy sigh. “There’s no way to break this easy,” he told Rob.
Rob was studying her, his eyes narrowed. “But ye already know, don’t ye?” he asked her.
Tally blinked as her eyes filled with tears. She had forgotten how much tears could hurt. “You’re going to war.”
“The agency is already at war—” Lee began.
“Vampires are at war,” Rob corrected. “The agency is just a handy focal point for laddies like Gabriel to take a swing at, but it’s vampires that stand to lose everything they’ve clawed from the world. We’ll be fighting for our right to exist, Tally. If Lee and I don’t join that fight, we deserve everything we’ll get if we lose.”
Tally swallowed. “Three thousand years of written history and women are still minding the home front while the men go off to war.”
Lee grinned, his eyes dancing. “We thought about sending you off instead of me, as you’re the meanest in-fighter we know. But I can’t do what you can do, so you get to stay home for this one.”
“What can’t you do?” Tally asked.
“Have babies,” Rob said flatly, rolling up his sleeve.
Her heart jumped. “Now? But the war…Jack...this is the worst possible time to have another baby!”
Spartan Resistance Page 31
