Byzantine Heartbreak

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Pritti touched the man’s shoulder gently. “I brought food,” she whispered.

  The man made a gurgling, grunting sound and the one eye that Demyan could see rolled to the side to look at her. That told him that the man wasn’t curled up in that position for warmth, but because his muscles and tendons had shortened to the point where he could not straighten his limbs anymore. Nor could he move his head to look at his sister. Only his eyes seemed to work.

  “What is his name?” Demyan asked softly.

  “Elon,” she said, opening up an insulated container. She smiled at the husk of a man lying on the old carpet before her. “You were always my favourite of all my brothers,” she told him. She lifted her hand toward Demyan. “And this is Demyan Romanov. From the Agency.”

  “He can no longer speak?” Demyan asked.

  “Not for many months now.” She smiled at Elon. “But we manage to work things out.” She stirred the food with a feeding spoon.

  “How old is he?” he asked, for Elon looked like a feeble old man.

  “Twenty-three.” She glanced at him, then back at the food she was steadily stirring, warming it. “I had fifteen half-brothers and sisters.”

  “Had?”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “Elon has out-lasted everyone but me. He’s a stubborn cuss.” She dipped into the food, picked up a spoonful. “Time to eat, little brother.”

  Demyan held his breath, as she lowered the spoon towards Elon’s mouth. The cracked, peeling lips opened just a little, probably as wide as he was able to open them. The spoon hovered at the lips. Pritti frowned, staring at the spoon, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Demyan could feel her heart trying to climb its way out of her ribcage, battering painfully.

  Abruptly, she dropped the spoon and turned away, to sit on the bare sand, her legs spread and her hands clutched convulsively between them. She hung her head. “I can’t,” she cried softly. “I can’t do it.”

  “Then don’t,” Demyan said simply. “We can find better care for him, somewhere else. This isn’t the only answer.” He picked up the poisoned pot of food that had slipped from her fingers and put it aside.

  She lifted her head then and speared him with a look that carried a baffling range of emotions, more than he could fathom. “Touch him,” she said. “Reach inside.”

  Carefully, Demyan laid his hand on Elon’s flank, feeling the brittle thinness beneath. He reached for the man’s mind through the physical contact.

  Pain. Raw, fiery flames of pain. Agony. Bone-gnawing, never stopping.

  He snatched his hand away and grabbed at his chest as his heart seemed to squeeze and halt. He kept very still, waiting for the violent reaction to pass. Then he looked at Pritti. She was watching him, was familiar with what he had sampled in Elon’s mind. Her eyes were full of tears again. “You see?” she said simply.

  “Is that...is that all there is to him now?” He had not been able to glimpse anything of the man behind that wall of overwhelming agony.

  “He can’t even scream anymore.” Pritti was still wringing her hands.

  Horror touched him. “But he knows you. He is aware. Awake to all of it.”

  “Yes,” she said simply. She separated her hands and rested one on his arm. “Demyan...would you...? You have ways...I know you can make it quick. Would you do this for Elon?”

  “I have never—” He stopped, realizing the inaccuracy of what he had been about to say. He tried again. “Pritti, I’ve never taken a life when the symbiot was not controlling me.”

  “But you can. You know how.”

  “Yes,” he said with deep reluctance.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Please, Demyan. I cannot. And it would be doing him a kindness. I tried to pay someone here to do it, but they think Elon is one of the old gods, returned to human form to suffer for his excesses and they won’t touch him.”

  “Instead, they keep the fire for him,” Demyan finished, glancing at the carefully tended fire pit. “That is why he has not been molested in this city of thieves and murderers.”

  Pritti looked away. After a long, throbbing moment of silence, she began to speak, almost to herself. “The humans who made us never noticed how their work impacted on the thalamus. They thought it was Parkinson’s disease, because the first symptoms of thalamus shut down are loss of memory and loss of sensations, then motor impairment, especially posture.” She looked back at Demyan and smiled. It was a painful expression. “We all know these facts. We learn them early. But it took the geneticists too many years to make the connection. Too many psi escaped to live on their own and by the time they figured out that the gene manipulation itself was causing the thalamus loss, it was too late. Thousands of us had been made. So they abandoned the project and left us to live or die as we may.”

  Demyan could find nothing to say. He was familiar with the history of the psi , but had never been so personally associated with it.

  “Many choose to die,” Pritti said flatly. “Not straight away, but when hope has truly gone that they might be the one psi spared the guaranteed fate.”

  “Elon did not chose that path?” Demyan asked.

  “He had no time to arrange it. His symptoms came on very early and very quickly. When he could no longer take care of the matter himself, he called to me, while his abilities were still intact. I came here for the first time about six months ago. I hadn’t seen him for twelve years before that.” She sniffed mightily and wiped her eyes. “So I am asking you to take care of Elon for me, because I’m weak and cowardly and can’t do it myself.”

  “You’re not a coward,” he assured her. “Human, yes. But not a coward.”

  “You’re insulting me?”

  “Pritti, you’re more human than most of that race of man. I have spent centuries watching them and can say that with complete certainty.”

  She sniffed doubtfully. “Will you do this, Demyan?”

  “For you, yes. I will.” He took a deep breath, bracing himself. “Don’t watch me. Don’t stay.”

  She nodded and moved out from under the roof, walking until he could no longer hear her footsteps. He turned to Elon. “Goodbye, Elon,” he murmured. “I promise you, this will not hurt. Your sister is right. I know what to do.”

  * * * * *

  The Agency satellite station. 2263 A.D.

  Cáel slammed his fists against the door, pummelling it. “Damn it, open the door, Ryan!”

  He turned to Nia. “Can you override the lock? Can you open it?”

  She fastened the dress closed and was completely respectable again. “I could, but why would I? He has made his wishes perfectly clear.” She spoke in a monotone.

  The intercom on her desk buzzed.

  “Don’t answer that!” he commanded as she reached for it.

  It buzzed again.

  He strode over to her and gripped her arms. “Open the goddamn door, Nia, or I’ll turn you over my knee and paddle your ass like a schoolgirl’s, so help me.” His temples were throbbing along with his heart and he knew he had to reel in his temper before it spewed all over the room and did permanent damage.

  Nia blinked. There was a tiny furrow between her brows and she looked like she was having trouble processing what he had said.

  Shock, he realized. Or what passed for shock in vampire terms. A log jam of thoughts that substituted for emotions.

  It checked his temper and put it on the back burner. “Nia,” he said more gently. “You have to deal with Ryan. Now. You can’t just let this lie.”

  She swallowed. “He wants it that way,” she whispered.

  “No, he bloody well doesn’t!” Cáel retorted. “He just doesn’t know how to do anything else anymore. He’s stuck, like you’re stuck. But you’ve hurt him...” He saw her wince and shook her a little. “Nia, it’s done, but now his defences are wide open and bleeding. You have to take this tiny opportunity and use it before he repairs them, because what he’ll rebuild will be thicker and infinitely harder to break through.”
<
br />   Her marvellous green eyes finally focused on him. “Yes,” she murmured. “You’re right.”

  Cáel sighed in relief. “Go,” he said, pushing her toward the door. “Go and get him.”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Cáel...”

  “Just hurry up, will you?” he told her, injecting irritation into his voice. “Ryan hates tardy women.”

  Her mouth curled up in a smile. “He does, doesn’t he?” She walked across the room, her deliciously curved hips swaying slightly in the sinful green velvet dress. The door opened for her and closed behind her.

  Cáel spun away, to look at Earth’s dark face. He rubbed furiously at his eyes as they stung and his fingers came away moist. “Ah, fuck...” he whispered. “You’re just human, Stelios. They don’t care. Give it up.”

  He leaned his fist against the cool glass and rested his head against his arm, watching Earth turn, accepting and familiarizing himself with the taste of loss.

  “Cáel,” Nia said, behind him.

  He turned. “Need something?” he asked, striving for a casual, neutral tone.

  “He’s not there. Not his quarters or his office. Brenden says his bio pattern doesn’t register on the station at all.”

  Cáel pushed himself away from the window. “He’s jumped somewhere. New Orleans...” He shook his head. “No, he’d know I’d think of that. And it’s for drinking and good times.” He looked at Nayara. “He must have half a dozen bolt holes spread across history. Where would he go to really hide away. An escape that he thinks no one knows about?”

  “What makes you think I would know about it if Ryan believes no one does?” Nia asked curiously.

  “You know each other so well,” Cáel said.

  Nayara tilted her head, looking at him. “So do you,” she said. “You know us almost as well. Where do you think Ryan jumped to?”

  “I...” Cáel cleared his throat. “I just know facts. Dates.”

  She shook her head. “You know a lot more than that. Where, Cáel? You’re right, Ryan is wounded and bleeding and he wants to hide from us both. Where would he go where he thinks neither of us would consider trying to find him?”

  The answer was so obvious when she phrased it that way. “Ireland,” Cáel said. “But not the little village where he came from, because he told me about it. Somewhere else meaningful to him, that he thinks we don’t know.” He recalled the dates and facts of Ryan’s history. “Cathair Saidhbhín,” he said, remembering.

  “Where is that?”

  “It’s on the coast in County Kerry.” Cáel hesitated. “Ryan’s wife died there,” he added.

  Nayara’s eyes widened. “His human wife,” she breathed.

  Cáel nodded. “They had a cottage on the cove. The Normans...” He hesitated. “Ryan hasn’t even told me this story, Nia. He very carefully set the rules of the book so that he wouldn’t have to.”

  “But you know, anyway,” she said, her voice distant. Cáel could see that she was already thinking far ahead of their conversation. The stupor her shock had thrown her into had worn off. Her eyes were glittering with the drive of her personality now. She pinned Cáel with her direct gaze. “When?” she demanded.

  “He wouldn’t risk going back to the same year,” Cáel pointed out. “He wouldn’t risk meeting himself, or her, and potentially starting a time wave. But he wouldn’t risk jumping too far forward or earlier than the time he knows, either. Not without preparation, the way he leapt away just then. He would risk running into political problems, wars, Norman reprisals, invading armies, even his own people battling among themselves, if he moves too far outside his known date range.”

  “And when was he there? I can avoid those years.”

  Cáel gave her the single year. “They were barely wed,” he told her.

  Nayara nodded stiffly. “I’ll bear that in mind,” she said, moving around to her side of the big desk.

  Cáel shoved his hands in his pockets and curled them into fists. “So...you’re going to jump there blind?”

  “I’m not that reckless,” Nia replied. She pulled a pair of long knives out of the drawer. They were sheathed in slender cases and she tucked them into her boots. Then she pulled out a leather drawstring purse that looked battered and ancient. It jingled as she tied the strings around her waist. Gold, unminted coins that would serve as ready money no matter what era she landed in, Cáel suspected. “Ophelia was born in Kerry. I’m going to read her mind.” She turned to pluck a dark cloak from the hook where it hung behind her desk and threw it around her shoulders and tied the strings. It was an incredibly makeshift wardrobe, but it was surprisingly versatile. It would get her through most periods of history as long as she didn’t try to pass herself off as either too rich or too educated.

  “You can’t read Ophelia’s mind unless she’s in human form,” Cáel pointed out.

  “And she is, right now. She’s back in France again.” Nia’s mouth lifted in a tiny smile. “Her favourite era.”

  “How are you going to get back there?”

  “I know that marker. We all do.” Nia wrinkled her nose. “So many clients want to drool over Josephine.”

  “I imagine that was what you thought I wanted, when I picked that tour, last year,” Cáel replied.

  “At first. I know now that you were probably watching us more than the French court.” Nia came around the desk to face him. “Your game was very long term, wasn’t it?”

  Cáel gave a small shrug. “High stakes deserve long range thinking.”

  Nia nodded. “I’ve learned that from you,” she said. She fell forward, toward him, her arms slapping around his waist, pushing him back, tumbling him off his feet. “Surprise,” she whispered breathlessly as they fell.

  * * * * *

  Cairo, Egypt. 2263 A.D.

  Demyan was not prepared for the sorrow and regret that left him almost immobile, after it was done. In all the years he had lived, he had been able to preserve most of his human morals, except for when the symbiot took control. The conditional standard allowed him to live with the facts of his vampire life.

  Now he had crossed that line.

  Pritti crept into his arms, settling in his lap and wrapping her arms around him. He could feel her gratitude and her grieving mix together. It helped. Just a little.

  For a long time they stayed that way, while the fire burned lower, then died altogether. Finally, as morning arrived, Pritti looked up at him with a direct, steady gaze that held no animosity, no fear, no hatred.

  “You’re a kind man.”

  It was a simple enough statement, but it touched him deeply.

  That was when he noticed the tic in the corner of her eye again and with the impact of a thunderclap, he put together the last piece of the puzzle. All the evidence of late: The limp he’d noticed, her absent-mindedness. The fact that she rarely teleported anywhere, or even spun on the spot. She’d been hiding it all along. He touched her eye. “No...not you. Not yet,” he said despairingly.

  “Yes, me,” she said softly. “And soon.”

  There was nothing more to say after that. So he held her, instead.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Agency satellite station. 2263 A.D.

  Justin stood up and stretched, then bent backwards, making his spine pop and snap. He finished by tilting his head to either side, stretching his neck, then sighed.

  Demyan, Rob, Christian and Brenden all watched him in silence. Rob looked baffled and slightly amused.

  “You make that look utterly real,” Rob observed. “I even feel tired just watching you do it.”

  Justin grinned. “I spend nearly all my time with humans, mate. It pays to blend in. It’s the little things that make all the difference.”

  “None of us are human here, boy,” Brenden growled. “So are you just showing off?”

  Justin shrugged. “It’s habit now. After I’ve been sitting still for a long time, I stretch like I’m ironing out all the kinks. Humans do it all the
time. So I do it. I don’t even think about it anymore.”

  Christian smiled, enjoying Rob’s amazement.

  Rob sat back, crossing his arms. “You study them a lot, then. Humans, I mean.”

  “Enough to pass as one. I’m not planning on travelling anytime soon.”

  Christian could see the natural ‘why not?’ form on Rob’s lips, but he held it back. It would be too probing a question, stepping over the line of polite conversation.

  Justin cracked his knuckles. This time he grinned. He was doing it deliberately. “I’m taking a break, boss,” he told Brenden. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  Brenden scowled even harder. “If you must,” he said curtly.

  Justin patted Brenden’s shoulder as he passed his desk and hurried out of Security, stepping through the doors before they had fully opened.

  “What’s his hurry?” Demyan asked.

  Brenden growled under his breath.

  “What?” Rob asked.

  “I said,” Brenden replied heavily, “better to ask ‘who’s his hurry for?’”

  Demyan scowled.

  Christian was startled. “Justin? With someone here at the agency? He’s actually seeing a non-human?”

  Brenden sighed. “Well, she’ll be non-human soon enough, I suppose.”

  Rob’s lips parted in surprise. “Dionne Rinaldi? Out of all the vampires she could have picked, designer-clad not-a-hair-out-of-place Rinaldi chose uncouth, outback raised Justin Kelly?”

  Brenden poked at his keyboard with his two thick forefingers, his scowl even darker. “Don’t think there was a lot of choosing in it. I spent hours dealing with complaints about noise from the quarters all around hers. She weren’t being too picky, the way I hear it...and everyone else heard it in the aft starboard far quarters.” He stabbed at the keyboard again, more viciously this time.

  They all stared at him, absorbing this little tidbit in amazed silence for a bit.

  “That old dog,” Demyan said at last. “He didn’t say a damned word. Not even a twinkle in his eye.” He stood up and glanced at Brenden. “I’m...I’ll be back in my quarters for a while, if you need me.” He moved out from behind the station he had been using, nodded at Rob and Christian and strode out of Security.