Kiss Across Deserts

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Sydney had walked into the station in her usual way, but her senses were fanned out, trying to watch every conceivable angle. Alex’s warning about Yonkers was at the forefront of her mind.

  But Baker had simply growled at her about how much crap there was for her to clean up now she was back and it had let her relax a little. He was treating her as he always did.

  There was a load of stupid stuff in her in-tray and the day had passed swiftly while she dealt with it all. She had just been starting to think about going home when Veris had called to tell her Taylor was missing.

  So instead, Sydney shut her door and thought about Taylor. And Veris and Brody. And Alex. And Rafe. Then she pulled her keyboard out from under her desk and began hitting keys.

  * * * * *

  “Is there any news?” Alex said as he walked into the big room. Rafe was already there, bending over the big coffee table with Veris and Brody. Sydney was standing back, her hand on her hip. Her jacket was open, displaying the butt of the Glock under her arm.

  She looked at him. “It’s news of a sort,” she said. “Come and look.”

  Brody stepped away from the table, and waved Alex forward. “I don’t see what the fuss is.”

  “You wouldn’t, which is why I phoned Alex,” Sydney said.

  “What are the photos?” Alex asked.

  “It’s the staff parking garage where Taylor works,” Veris said. He pointed to one of the photos. There was a dark colored Aston Martin showing in the corner. “That’s Taylor’s car.”

  Alex looked. There were a dozen cars showing in the photo, all of them neatly parked, plus a lot of spaces. Behind them was a strip of unadorned concrete, the access area. There was nothing else showing in the photo except for big concrete pillars.

  “What time was this taken?” Alex asked.

  “Six forty-three in the evening,” Sydney said. She reached between Rafe and Veris. “Excuse me.” She pulled one of the photos out from underneath the rest and dropped it on top. “This was from twelve minutes earlier.”

  There was a light colored car driving past the backs of the parked cars. It was a big car—a Ford Explorer, he thought, with a cattle bar mounted on the front.

  Alex straightened up with a jerk. “Oh, holy mother!”

  Everyone else looked at him, puzzled, except Sydney.

  “That’s the car…the white car from your accident,” Alex said.

  Sydney nodded. “That’s the first thing I thought of. That’s why I’m here.”

  Veris held up a hand. “I know about the hit-and-run in general, but not the specifics. Alex didn’t detail it. Perhaps you’d better do that now.”

  Sydney told them about the hit-and-run in dry, short and factual statements. Veris seemed to appreciate the lack of adornment, for he listened carefully. Then he looked at Alex. “You didn’t remember being there, but you were there in the photos. That didn’t remind you of anything?”

  Alex started in surprise once more. “Time travel,” he breathed. Then he shook his head. “Of course I didn’t think of it, when this first happened. Time travel was something only you three did. It just didn’t occur to me. But that would explain it.”

  “You were there?” Sydney asked.

  Alex looked at her. “I will be there. I haven’t got there yet. But sometime in my future, I will jump back to that time. It was me, after all, but I had no memory of having been there, because I haven’t gone there yet.”

  Sydney sat on the arm of one of the chairs nearby. “That’s why none of it made sense,” she said slowly. “I knew there was something screwy going on.” She reached into her handbag, sitting at her feet and pulled out something gold and glittering, and held it up. It was Alex’s Ichthys. “I took this from you. At the accident. It fell out of your pocket.”

  Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out the same medallion and held it up, swinging gently. “I still have it, because I haven’t jumped back there yet.”

  Rafe rubbed his temples. “Veris, why are there two of them here where we can see them? Why isn’t the universe imploding because of the paradox?”

  “Because it’s only a paradox in your mind,” Veris said, looking at the two medallions. “Time isn’t linear, remember. We just experience it that way. The moment of the accident and this moment right now coexist in time.”

  Rafe frowned. “When I was under Alex’s drug, everything was layered over the top of everything else, and spread out like a huge landscape.”

  “You were experiencing time closer to what it really is,” Veris agreed. “Depthless and endless in all directions. And that makes sense. The serum increases the firing of brain synapses and brings even more of them online, which increases capacity the brain works at. It’s also why Alex was experiencing near-seizures—the electrical storm. If your brain is working at a higher capacity than normal, who knows what you are able to perceive? Time itself doesn’t seem like an unreasonable thing to trip over in that state.”

  Sydney reached into her bag once more. “Then you all need to see this.” She dropped the photo she withdrew onto the top of the others already spread upon the table and stepped back, putting the medallion back into her bag.

  Everyone bent over the photo. Alex saw what it was between Veris and Rafe’s shoulders, and stood back to give them room. He glanced at Sydney. “Where did you get it? I thought all the evidence, the videos…I thought it had all been stolen?”

  “I held one of the photos back from the evidence box,” Sydney said. “I wanted to study it. So it was in my briefcase the night the evidence disappeared. I didn’t tell you about it because you were so stressed about appearing in the photos in the first place.” She gave him a small smile. “Now I know why.” Then she looked at the three men huddled around the photo. “Do any of you recognize the driver standing by the Explorer?”

  “There weren’t any clearer shots of his face under that hood?” Brody asked.

  “He seemed to know exactly where not to turn, like he knew where all the cameras were,” Sydney said. “None of the footage showed a clear shot. This is probably the best of them, and you can only see a jawline.”

  Rafe bent closer, turning the photo slightly. “Yes. There’s a reflection. Here, in the window of the driver’s door. See?”

  Everyone looked again, even Alex this time. There was a pale disk reflected on the glass, that Alex had assumed was the reflection of a street light. But the street light was behind the Explorer.

  Rafe picked up the photo, and looked at Brody and Veris. “Do you have a flatbed scanner?”

  “Upstairs,” Brody said.

  “I might be able to blow up the reflection so we can see it,” Rafe said. “Can I?”

  “Of course.” Brody took him through to the foyer and stairs, and a moment later they reappeared on the upper balcony. There was a desk and a computer set up there that Alex knew was mainly used for cataloguing and indexing their vast library. Rafe settled in front of the computer equipment and Brody came back downstairs again. He didn’t sit down. None of them were sitting, except for Sydney, who was merely propping herself on the arm of the chair.

  “What’s next?” Alex asked.

  Brody looked at Veris, but before he could answer, Sydney spoke. “This is the only line of enquiry open to you at the moment. We have to hope that Rafe can build a face out of the photo, because it’s clear that Taylor was taken against her will, by the same person who tried to kill me.” She gave them a small smile. “Whoever it is clearly understood the connection between me and Taylor long before any of us discovered it for ourselves.”

  Veris put his hands over his face and gave a loud groan. “No! No, no, no!” he cried into his hands, then pulled them away. “She has always wanted Taylor for her own, and she has always wanted the secret to time travel. Somewhere in the future, she must learn the art of time travel, which let her come back to the past—to here—to get the other thing she most wants. Taylor.”

  Alex’s stomach did a slow roll, and h
is chest squeezed. “Tira,” he breathed.

  Brody dropped onto a chair, suddenly, as if his knees had given way.

  “Who is Tira?” Sydney asked.

  Rafe leaned over the balcony. “Is this anyone you recognize?” he asked, holding up a printed image. It was somewhat blurry, but it was the full features. Big eyes, sharp jaw, high cheekbones.

  Veris closed his eyes.

  Brody was looking down at his knees.

  So Alex spoke. “It’s Tira.” His voice was strained.

  Rafe turned the photo around to look at it, startled. His mouth opened. Then he muttered something in what Alex had to assume was either old Greek or ancient Hispanic. “Fuck me,” he added.

  Sydney looked at Alex and raised her brow.

  “Tira is another long story,” Alex told her.

  “Everything with you guys is a long story,” Sydney pointed out. “But I can guess most of it. Tira is another vampire and definitely not a friend of yours. She’s caused problems before, and from that I can guess she was probably at the root of Brody’s arrest. From Veris’ expression, she’s not someone you can dismiss lightly. She has resources, including, now, the ability to time jump.”

  Veris sat in the chair behind him. Heavily.

  “Does it make sense, given what you know of Tira,” Sydney asked, “for her to take Taylor?”

  “Yes,” Alex said flatly.

  Rafe came up to the table and put the photo back on top of the pile. “She has always worked on the very edges of the Council’s tolerance. This is exactly like her.”

  “Why would she take her?” Sydney asked, and Alex could sense from her tone that she was looking for information. Data.

  “Tira has wanted Taylor for her own, ever since she met her,” Brody said heavily. “She wanted to turn her, so that Taylor would always have that unbreakable bond with her. At first, I think it was because Taylor could do what Tira couldn’t.”

  “Time travel,” Alex interjected.

  “After the drug thing and Constantinople, and…well…” He looked up. “The kids infuriated her. Natural children, conceived by vampires, thanks to time travel. I think the birth of the twins might have just tipped her over into vengeance for its own sake. She resents us that much.”

  Sydney pressed her lips together, absorbing it all. “Who is she, this Tira? Why can’t you just cut her out of your life?”

  “She’s our queen,” Alex said.

  “And she hasn’t annoyed the Council enough yet to bother replacing her,” Rafe added, “although she has come close on a few occasions.”

  Sydney stood up. “So, you have to find Tira and where she is keeping Taylor, and that could be anywhere in time and space.”

  Veris sighed.

  “It’s a good thing we have someone who can float through time and space and find places, isn’t it?” Sydney said.

  Brody jerked his head up, hope blazing in his face.

  But Veris spoke before Brody could say anything. “It’s too dangerous. We haven’t even begun to chart possible side effects of the serum, or how to counter them.”

  “But it will let me find Taylor,” Rafe said firmly. “I know just what to do.”

  “No, I’ll do it,” Alex said. “I’ve had more practice.”

  “You’re the doctor. You need to monitor and stand by,” Rafe countered.

  “Veris has more medical degrees than I’ll ever earn,” Alex said. “And he’s read the research and trial notes. He can monitor.”

  Rafe opened his mouth once more, but Alex held up his hand. “You have people who rely on you, Rafe. You have a family. And you have Sydney. Just shut up this once and take a back seat. I’m doing it.”

  He looked at Sydney. “Keep him out of my way, huh?”

  She nodded, her eyes large.

  * * * * *

  Alex settled on the couch in Veris’ home clinic as Veris stepped up with the syringe.

  “This is a huge dose,” Veris said.

  That didn’t make Rafe and Sydney, who stood looking on, look any happier.

  “I’ve grown a tolerance for the stuff,” Alex assured him. “I’ll need all of it to break out into the timescape.” He held out his arm.

  Veris rested the needle against his skin and looked at him. “Thank you for this.”

  “That’s what family is for,” Alex said.

  Veris gave him a ghost of a smile. “Three hours and we bring you out again,” he warned, and injected the serum.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alex tore through the barriers to the timescape. The beckoning thought, the forgotten memory, barely raised its head. Briefly, he considered if the dose had been too much. He could barely draw breath.

  But he was in the timescape. Now that he knew it was time itself he was perceiving, it didn’t seem like such an alien place. It was understandable, but he didn’t have the capacity to understand it. The dimensions of time couldn’t be grasped by human or vampire perceptions, so he saw it as this clumsy landscape. Like Rafe, he could sense the depth to it. The layers…so many layers! People, millions of them, going about their lives. Dying, being born. All at once.

  Alex let his senses stretch out before him and all around him. Rafe had said that the places he had found had beckoned to him, meaning they had some sort of personal significance. That had been the case when Alex found himself in Marit’s long hall.

  Beware, Uncle Alex, she had said. Was this what he must be wary of?

  He let himself float above the landscape and thought of Taylor. He thought of her laugh, her warm brown eyes, her beautiful hair. Her temper, when it was roused, as Veris sometimes liked to do, just to kiss her into a better mood. Taylor as Alex had known her in the desert, the lady wife of a lord, who said all the wrong things and did all the right things, like taking a spear in the shoulder that was meant for another.

  Somewhere ahead, Alex could feel…it was almost like heat, or pulsing sound. Something. He moved toward it. It was a long way off and it felt like he was motionless, but he sensed the landscape beneath him was moving very fast, even though he could see no details that would tell him if his sense was correct.

  Taylor, hold on, he thought, as the place ahead started to pull him in, like a fish on a line, faster and faster.

  * * * * *

  Brody and Veris held Alex down as he thrashed on the bed.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Sydney cried. It was terrible watching Alex writhe like that. It looked like he was in abject pain. She reached for Rafe’s hand. “Why is this happening?”

  Rafe shook his head. His eyes were wide. “I don’t know,” he said and sounded like he hated that confession. “I think it’s normal.”

  “Normal?” Brody asked, horrified. He looked at Veris, who was grimly bearing down on Alex’s shoulders. “He did this for a whole year? What the hell was he looking for?”

  “Answers,” Veris said shortly. “Just like he is now. All we can do is stop him from hurting himself.”

  Sydney looked at the clock readout on the computer sitting on the desk. There was still a whole hour to go before Veris’ declared deadline. “You can’t let him do that for another hour,” she said flatly. “He’ll tear himself to pieces.”

  “I was out for thirteen hours,” Rafe said softly. “We have to give him time to find Taylor.”

  Veris looked at him. “Come and help Brody hold him down. I want to take his vitals and see what is happening in there.”

  Rafe kissed Sydney’s hand, then stepped over to the side of the bed and took over Veris’ part in holding Alex steady and keeping him on the bed. “No wonder I needed to feed straight after,” he said, looking down at him. “This would drain anyone.”

  “We don’t have anything on standby,” Brody said. “That could be a problem.”

  “There’s me,” Sydney said, and was as surprised as everyone else. “I mean, he can feed from me, can’t he?” There was so much about vampire culture she didn’t know yet.

  Veris looked
at her as he untangled a stethoscope and moved back to the table. “It can be problematic,” he said. “Especially between partners.”

  The look Brody gave him told Sydney there was another long story behind Veris’ simple statement.

  Veris tore open Alex’s shirt and placed the stethoscope against his chest and listened. He frowned. “Runaway heartbeat, slightly arrhythmic. Not a large surprise, but it’s very high.” He pressed his hand against Alex’s brow. “Temperature on the rise. He’s near to human normal already.”

  “I thought you could hear heartbeats without a stethoscope?” Sydney asked.

  Veris glanced at her. “Not when there are so many loud and elevated heartbeats in the room already.” He kept testing, tapping, and listening. “What I would give for an EEG monitor,” he murmured.

  “Later,” Brody snapped. He sounded breathless from his exertions keeping Alex on the bed.

  Sydney bit her lip and glanced at the clock once more. Fifty-five minutes to go.

  * * * * *

  There. There! Alex could see the place just ahead. It was an ordinary room, forming in front of him. He absorbed the details. Tira was there, small and slender, sitting at a table. Taylor stood at the other end of the table. Her arms were not tied, but she was watching Tira closely.

  Uncle Alex!

  He looked around. Marit was there, with him in the timescape. It was the older Marit, from the long hall. She turned her head to look at the room where her mother was being held.

  “You must tell the others,” she said. “Bring them here. The queen is not—”

  “Alex!” The call came from behind him. The voice was strong. Male. He knew the voice, but he shook off the imperative call and looked back at Marit. “The queen isn’t what?”

  Marit shook her head. “Tell them. Tell them all,” she insisted, and drifted away.

  * * * * *

  “Alex!” Veris yelled, and slapped his face again.