Kiss Across Deserts

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Beware, Uncle Alex.

  He almost tripped over his own feet as he walked back inside.

  Veris was standing over Sydney’s chair, holding her wrist while he measured her pulse, his other hand on her forehead, for her temperature.

  “You see?” Sydney said, her voice the same light, bodiless murmur. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” Veris said. “But you’re not in clinical shock, either, which was what I was afraid of. I have sedatives on hand, though. They might make you feel more comfortable.”

  “No drugs,” she said firmly, her voice a fraction stronger.

  Veris looked up at Alex. “Maybe a second opinion?”

  “If Sydney says no, then it’s no,” Alex said.

  Veris turned to Taylor. “Your vitals are all sluggish, too. Perhaps you should go back to sleep.”

  Taylor looked at him sharply. “Stop trying to send the women out of the room, Veris.”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again, and sat back down on his chair.

  Brody sat forward. “He’s not getting rid of you. Either of you.”

  “No, but he’s gearing up for a war council and the old instinct is to get the women and children out of the room so they don’t hear anything distressing. He knows this is ugly and Sydney is already stressed. So he’s trying to spare us.”

  Brody grimaced and sat back. Taylor rested her hand on Veris’ arm. “It’s sweet of you, but Sydney and I have a big stake in this. Bigger than yours. We stay.”

  Sydney gave Taylor a small smile.

  “War council?” Alex asked.

  Veris looked up at him. “Taylor is exaggerating to make a point.”

  “Not much,” Taylor muttered.

  “But we do need to consider the ramifications of this…development.”

  “And deal with an asshole or two,” Taylor added and Veris glared at her. She smiled sweetly back.

  “Pull up a chair, you two,” Brody said. “You might as well get comfortable.”

  Alex went over to the far wall, where the last two chairs sat on either side of a tall bookcase, and carried them over to where everyone waited.

  Sydney watched him with a curious look on her face, and he realized that she was still getting used to vampires being themselves, including using more of their strength and their enhanced perceptions. Then she straightened. “Why is this even under discussion?” she asked. “I mean, this is my personal history.”

  “Agreed,” Veris said easily. “But it’s a personal history that you shouldn’t have been able to jump back to. That’s what we need to think about.”

  “What Veris is trying to say in his usual delicate way,” Brody added, “is that you’re family now. You joined the tribe tonight, when you jumped back to Alex’s days in the desert. Your problems are our problems, now.”

  Sydney’s eyes widened and her mouth opened. She shut it with an audible click. “I…um…thank you.”

  Alex caught her eye. “They really do mean it when they say ‘family’. I’ve been privileged to have been family for several years now. They will give their all to help you. Of course, they sometimes expect you to pull out a few stops of your own to assist them from time to time.”

  Veris grinned. “Like laying guards out cold, Alex?”

  Alex shrugged. “It was the least I could do.”

  Veris looked at Sydney. “And they were vampire guards, too.” His expression sobered. “Alex’s serum has the ability to….” He blew out his breath. “I don’t have the vocabulary for it, yet. But the serum, at a high enough dose, lets you travel. Mental travel, for both Alex and Raphael say they couldn’t see their own bodies and direction was achieved by willing themselves where they wanted to go. We’ve theorized that this sort of travel is probably what Tira has experienced in the past. It is time travel of a sort, for you can go back in time, and you do see real events that happened, but you can’t participate in them. They unroll like a movie in front of you.”

  “It feels real enough,” Rafe said. “I felt the cold on both occasions.”

  “Which is probably why you were able to go back for real,” Brody said. “It was very real, and left a distinct impression.”

  “But, Taylor, you said the first couple of times you jumped, it was this same sort of mental travel,” Sydney said. “It really wasn’t mental for me and Alex, because you saw us there and spoke to us.”

  Taylor nodded. “I think Alex was pre-conditioned by listening to us talk about time travel for years. He’s always wanted to be able to do it himself. And his memory of that time and places is extraordinarily vivid and detailed. I think your abilities are very strong and you by-passed that intermediate step.” She glanced at Veris. “Would you agree, oh, master?”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “Let’s not get into the trap of considering who might be a better jumper. The last thing I could stand right now is two women in a cat fight.”

  “Liar. You’d love it,” Brody muttered.

  Alex smothered his laugh as Veris glared at Brody. Even Sydney smiled.

  Rafe pushed his fingers through his wavy hair, pushing it all back from his forehead. “So…if I can find places in the past with the serum, can anyone?”

  “The past,” Veris said in agreement, “and possibly the future.” He looked at Alex.

  “That’s where you think I was, when I…” Alex dropped his voice, aware that Marit was eavesdropping. “When I spoke to Marit?”

  “She was older, you said,” Brody pointed out. “The future is one possibility.”

  Taylor drew in a sharp breath. “Or was it the past, for Marit?”

  “Marit time travels?” Rafe asked, startled.

  “Not that we’re aware of…yet,” Veris said grimly. “Although I think we’re going to need a family conference when she’s awake.” He dismissed the subject with an impatient shake of his head. “We’re losing focus. Alex and Rafe both saw people and events that were real. Does that mean that if anyone uses the serum and sees something, they can jump to it, later?”

  The room was silent as everyone considered it.

  “You said that it was your perfect memories that let you jump back into the past,” Sydney said slowly, clearly working it out as she spoke. “So if someone sees something with the…the serum, if they see it clearly enough, then why wouldn’t they be able to jump to it later? Rafe did, so that’s proof it’s possible.”

  Veris nodded. “That’s the first axiom, granted. Rafe did it. Now…can anyone do it?”

  Sydney shrugged. “You won’t know until someone other than Rafe or Alex tries it.”

  Veris sat back. “I don’t think anyone is willing to try it right now. Certainly not me. I saw the physical effects it has on the brain.”

  “Don’t you heal from anything?” Sydney asked.

  Brody laughed. “Skewered, coward.”

  Veris laughed, too, unabashed. “Well, let’s say I’m not in a hurry to try it. We’ve got enough on our plate.”

  Sydney frowned.

  “Yes, we’re talking about you,” Alex told her.

  “But what is there you can possibly do?” she asked. “It happened twelve years ago. That was a whole other life and another person.”

  “And you’ve lived in fear for twelve years,” Veris said gently. “Tell me you haven’t been looking over your shoulder the whole time.”

  Sydney pressed her lips together, her green eyes narrowing. “Yes,” she said at last.

  “How good is your ID?” Rafe asked. “It’s clearly stood up to a decade of use, and even passed the LAPD screening, but the original documents…can they be traced back to Arlene?”

  Alex could detect Sydney’s growing anxiety, her rising heart rate.

  “I don’t know,” she said at last. “That was a long time ago. My connections and my skills weren’t as good as they are now.”

  “Maybe that’s something we can fix?” Taylor asked of no one in particular.

  There was a thoughtful pause
.

  “You mean,” Sydney said, “go back in time and fix it?”

  Taylor looked at Veris. “There has to be a way to do that without screwing up the timeline. Sydney has stayed Sydney for fifteen years without anyone figuring it out, so maybe we already did go back.”

  Alex glanced at Sydney to check that she understood what Taylor had said. The changes in tense and the time paradoxes were sometimes hard to understand, but Sydney seemed to be following just fine.

  “No one helped me with my ID, the first time,” Sydney said, proving she had understood precisely.

  “When was the last time you recalled the memory of arranging the ID?” Veris asked. “If we’re still to go back and help you, then your memory of it could have changed already.”

  “But your memories don’t change until after you’ve gone back and changed something,” Alex pointed out.

  Sydney was frowning. “No, it’s the way I remember it…although even if it had changed, wouldn’t it seem like it was the way it always had been to me?”

  “Yes…and no.” Veris let out a breath. “I don’t know how it would work for a human. Your memory is so much less reliable than ours.”

  Taylor gave a laugh and patted Veris’ knee. “I wish I was recording this. It’s been a long time since anyone skewered you with your own logic. This is fun.” She looked at Sydney. “Don’t let him get away with a generality. He’s too used to being the smart one in the room.”

  Rafe spoke, his voice low. “If we’re going back, why don’t we go back and fix this properly and completely.”

  Alex’s heart thudded. He knew exactly what Rafe was saying. “Yes,” he said. “Why not? Take Peter out of the equation altogether. Then Sydney would never meet him.”

  Veris shook his head. “No. You can’t screw with the future like that.”

  “Why not?” Rafe said hotly. “So we fuck with the future and Peter disappears. Who cares? I won’t shed a tear for the bastard.”

  “No,” Veris said, his voice loud. “You have no idea what would happen once you did that. You don’t know how the changes ripple down to this time, how enormous the changes might be.”

  Alex crossed his arms. “It would be worth it,” he said flatly.

  “Would it?” Veris turned in his chair to confront him. He was angry…or perhaps he was afraid, and it was the first time Alex had ever been the focus of Veris’ temper and emotions, although Taylor had warned him about them. “Have you listened to nothing that Brody and Taylor and I have said about screwing with time? Do you not understand how something as simple as going back and killing a foul being that barely deserves the name ‘human’ would fuck with your life?”

  Alex realized his heart had slipped lose and was beating heavily. He took in a calming breath. “I have listened. I know what you’re saying. I still say it’s worth it.”

  “It’s not your choice to make!” Veris cried.

  “What’s not his choice to make?” Rafe asked, his voice much calmer than Veris’. He was looking at Alex, expecting him to explain.

  “If you…or I, or anyone else goes back and deals with Peter, then Sydney’s life would immediately alter. She wouldn’t have reason to escape to the coast, she wouldn’t join the police force because she never met Peter and wouldn’t need to prove herself.”

  “Primary computation,” Veris said heavily. “She would never meet either of you.”

  Alex nodded.

  “But Sydney would never meet Peter, would she?” Rafe said, looking at Alex.

  “No, she wouldn’t,” Alex said.

  Rafe stare at him. “You’d give up ever meeting Sydney?” he asked softly, and Alex suddenly felt like there was no one else in the room but the two of them.

  “For Sydney, yes,” Alex said calmly.

  “Then so would I.”

  “No!” Sydney cried. “I don’t care what an asshole Peter was, I won’t change a single thing about that time if it means I don’t end up right here, right now. I won’t consider it! Not for a moment.”

  Veris smiled grimly. “There is your answer, gentlemen. For the time being, unless someone comes up with a bright idea that doesn’t involve changing the past, we do nothing. Not until we know a lot more about how the serum affects time travel.”

  Sydney looked at him. “Does that mean you’re going to try the serum now, big guy?”

  Brody snorted.

  Veris just shook his head. “Ordinary time travel nearly destroyed my life twice already. When it comes to this, I’m risk averse.” His gaze flickered around the room. “I have too much to lose,” he said quietly.

  Taylor leaned over and kissed his cheek.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Brody paused halfway down the stairs as childish chatter reached his ears. It wasn’t the children talking that caught his attention. Marit did all the talking, still, but the twins seemed to like the sound of her voice and would focus on her face and listen endlessly while she talked.

  It was the odd language Marit was using that made Brody back up a few steps, open up his hearing, and focus in on Marit’s voice. Marit was a polyglot that soaked up a new language like other kids absorbed Sesame Street, but this wasn’t one Brody had heard before.

  He turned and eased his way back down the passageway to the big playroom, listening all the way. Marit’s voice became clearer, even through the closed door, but he still didn’t recognize the language. When he reached the door, he eased it open and stepped inside.

  Marit finished her chattering at the twins, who were rolling around on the floor, reaching for things to chew on, and kicking their legs. Aran had his knees under him, and was rocking. It would be any day now he would start crawling and then life would get interesting. Again.

  Marit smiled up at him. “Athair, Alannah wants to be like you when she grows up.”

  “A rock singer?” he asked curiously.

  “A daddy,” Marit said gravely. “Although I said she could only be a mommy like Mom, but…” She shrugged.

  “That’s what you were telling her just then?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she told you about wanting to be a daddy, just like you were talking?”

  Marit rolled her eyes. “Alannah is still too little to talk. Not much, anyway. But she looks at me and I know what she’s thinking.”

  “Uh-huh,” Brody said carefully. “So what were you talking to her in? What language was that? I don’t think I’ve heard it before.”

  Marit’s expression didn’t change by an inch. “Just something I heard,” she said.

  “Someone in the neighborhood speaks it?” he pressed.

  “No, somewhere…around,” she said, and picked up the soft block Aran was reaching for and put it just in front of him. He crowed and slapped his hand on it, and it bounced away.

  “It sounds very old,” Brody said.

  “I think it is. I don’t know what it’s called.” Marit shrugged.

  Brody made a mental note to move the family discussion about what Merit could or couldn’t do up to sometime very soon. Today, if he could arrange it.

  The door to the playroom opened again, and Mia came in. “Hi, Brody,” she said, then smiled at Marit. “Marit does such a great job watching the twins when I need to step away for a minute.”

  “She does,” Brody agreed.

  The door opened again. It was Veris. Something about his expression made Brody move toward him. “Wait,” he said quietly, and pulled him out of the room. Once the door was shut, he looked at Veris expectantly.

  “Taylor isn’t home,” Veris said.

  Brody consulted his time sense, checking the time. “She’s not so late,” he pointed out.

  “I can’t raise her. Not on any of the phones.”

  There was a phone in the car, as well as her office and cellphones. If she couldn’t be reached at any of them, that made a difference.

  Veris crossed his arms. “I phoned the library reception and asked them to track her down for me, but they sai
d she left work an hour ago.”

  Brody waited. He knew Veris’ expressions and knew there was a kicker to this. He braced himself.

  “I asked them to check her parking bay,” Veris said.

  “The Aston Martin is still there,” Brody breathed.

  Veris nodded.

  Brody grabbed his arm. “We can track her better than anyone. We start there. I’ll drive.”

  Veris pulled out his phone as Brody hauled him down the passage.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Sydney. The police can’t officially do anything for twenty-four hours, but she can.”

  “Good idea.”

  Neither of them questioned aloud whether this might be a false alarm. Taylor was too resourceful and too thoughtful to leave them wondering like this. The only reason she hadn’t contacted them to let them know she was okay was because she couldn’t.

  The list of possible reasons why she couldn’t do that was very short and bloody.

  * * * * *

  Sydney sat back in her chair, looking at the telephone with some trepidation. She had just finished talking to Veris, and she had been able to hear the worry in his voice. All the usual platitudes and reassurances she normally used if someone tried to report a missing person ahead of the twenty-four-hour rule didn’t rise up this time.

  If Veris said Taylor was missing and foul play was involved, she believed him, and that was the scary part. In less than forty-eight hours, Taylor and her family had become beacons in Sydney’s life. Her very changed life.

  She began to figure out what she could do below the radar, so none of the usual monitoring systems would be alerted while she did some poking around.

  This was her first day back at work after taking a full day to catch up on her sleep. Rafe had insisted, assuring her he had watched more humans sleeping than she had, and was far more familiar with sleep cycles and what lack of sleep could do. He had tucked her into bed, seven hours after he had folded the covers back. The sun had been coming up by then. She had been so dizzy with sleep deprivation that she hadn’t argued. She had fallen asleep before Rafe finished pulling the curtains over the window to block the light.