Kiss Across Tomorrow (Kiss Across Time Book 8)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  The blue beam leapt out again, passing overhead with a sizzling, wet sound which made her cringe. She heard a cry and looked up, startled, to see Remi clutch at his side. He fell as if an invisible weight had punched him to the floor.

  Winter slithered between the benches and put her hand on his ankle, as he writhed. Immediately, his squirming lessened. The pain in his eyes faded.

  The blue beam shot out again. No one screamed this time.

  The machine gun fire had been a constant barrage when they entered. Now there were breaks and stutters in the staccato fire. The resistance was being winnowed down.

  Everyone, forward!

  Taylor took a quick look over the bench in front of her, saw no one looking at her, and threw herself over the bench and behind the next one. Then another one. This was the last row before an open area of white tiles. She took another quick look. There was a door to the left—an actual door, with hydraulics and round port holes which made her think of hospitals. The doors were open and more cartel men lined the passage outside, which also had tiles.

  Clearly, the way they had come had been a back entrance. Nial had been locked away in the cellar.

  Taylor’s quick glance also told her there was a glassed-in room in the right-hand corner, filled with expensive looking medical equipment and a bed with a still figure lying on it.

  She was already breathing hard, her heart loose and screaming, or she might have felt it lurch and beat harder.

  There hadn’t been enough time to stare at the figure and figure out if it was Brody or not. The blue beam leapt out again. She ducked down. As soon as it passed overhead, she lifted herself to look over the top of the bench she crouched behind.

  In the middle of the open space between the doors and the glass room stood a tall, rangy man with pale skin and black hair. He was not Latino. His face was working with anger as he wielded a strange gun. That was the beam gun. The pain whip, Kieran had called it. He was playing it across the room the way a firefighter would spray water.

  She saw Veris take a single shot at him with the Uzi. The bullet hit the man square in the chest. All he did was take a half-step back. Then he surged forward, playing the beam around with even more determination. A hole in his black tee shirt smoked where the slug had hit him.

  Armor.

  Taylor ducked down again. The beam thing was keeping everyone at bay while more cartel men came in through the doors with regular firearms. They wouldn’t last forever, locked down this way.

  The man with the beam had to go.

  She watched overhead for the swing of the beam. He was far too casual and regular about his sweeps. She counted off the seconds between it passing overhead.

  Five seconds. An eternity.

  As soon as the beam moved overhead once more, she stood and found her target. She threw the knife in a hard overhead toss, putting her full weight behind the blade. It was a trick shot yet one she had worked on, because it was sometimes effective.

  The knife jammed in the man’s upper arm. He cried out and the gun he was holding slipped from his grip. It was a two-handed weapon. The muzzle dropped. The beam cut out.

  Taylor threw the other knife, adjusting her arm. It sliced into the man’s biceps.

  The gun clattered to the tiles.

  Kieran threw himself over his bench and lunged across the open space. Future Veris was half-a-step behind him.

  Sebastian used the AK-47 to clear out the corridor beyond the doors, then slapped the button to make the doors shut. He shoved his bayonet through the handles of the door then, with a heave and strain, he bent the bayonet around the steel handles.

  Alex gripped Taylor’s arm, hauling her to her feet. “Hurry,” he breathed.

  While future Veris and Kieran grabbed the man, everyone else dealt with the last of the cartel people still in the room, mostly by knocking them unconscious. Alex hurried Taylor past, sidestepping struggling Columbians. Once, he back-handed someone as they got in his way, flinging them into Aran’s reach. Taylor watched, astonished, as Aran threw the man to the ground and Alannah landed on him with her full bodyweight. Alannah rammed the hilt of her knife into the back of his neck. The man stopped struggling.

  Alex hit another green door switch and the door to the glass room, which was also another glass sheet, opened silently. There was a hiss of air. Negative air pressure.

  The room smelled sterile and clean, yet an underlying hint of old aromas and stenches lingered which humans wouldn’t be able to detect. It was a ghost of past traumas.

  Alex shoved aside tall equipment. It was all on wheels, which squeaked on the tiles.

  The bed was one of the narrow surgery examination tables common in most doctors’ offices. The man lying on it was curled on his side, his back to the door. A blue light played over him, like a mist rolling over dales. The light distorted the figure beneath, although it looked like Brody’s long body. It might be him…only this man was frail. Skinny.

  Metal clattered behind them. Taylor whirled. Veris was striding into the room. He had dropped the Uzi, his gaze on the table.

  Taylor turned back to the table. Alex reached for the man’s shoulder. As his fingertips contacted with the light, he jerked and pulled his hand away and shook it. He examined the blue light and the equipment sitting on the cart beside the bed.

  He glanced up and over Taylor’s shoulder and grimaced. “The sick bastard,” he breathed and turned back to the equipment.

  Taylor spun to look up. There were two TV screens hanging from the ceiling. They were displaying photos and images, a few seconds each. She moaned as she watched them appear and disappear. They were all of her and Veris, Marit and the twins, most of them from Martha’s Vineyard. There were long-distance photos of them in Boston, too, walking the Harvard campus together. Taylor, walking through Edgartown on her way to meet Naomi. The majority were of Veris and her. Arm-in-arm. There was even one of them on the couch together, taken through the doors of the sunroom.

  Veris pushed between Taylor and Alex. “Turn it off,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “I’m working on it,” Alex said. “This equipment is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Just hit switches,” Veris shot back. “Any switch. All of them.”

  Alex prodded and flicked and shoved. Nothing happened. “Fuck this,” Alex muttered. He pulled a small Glock out of his coat pocket and shot at the consoles. Electronic sparks jumped and fizzed. Smoke rose upward.

  The blue light flickered, then disappeared.

  Brody groaned. He didn’t move.

  Taylor and Veris reached for him. Veris glanced at Taylor. “Slowly,” he breathed.

  They rolled him onto his back and Taylor drew in a shaky breath as Brody’s face came into view.

  It was without doubt Brody. She knew him too well to be in doubt. Only he had changed so radically since she last saw him that anyone less familiar with the lines of his face and his eyes might have doubted it was him.

  His face was stark. The high cheek bones lifted his flesh in a way which made it seem as though they would punch through if the flesh was pulled any tighter. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes sunken. His body was wasted.

  Taylor had seen Holocaust victims who looked healthier.

  His eyes slitted open, then opened a little wider. “Taylor…” he croaked. His gaze shifted. “Veris.” He swallowed, his throat moving harshly. “You’re late.” He closed his eyes.

  “Let me through. Let me see,” Winter said from behind them. Others were coming into the room now, including David and Nayara.

  Veris rounded on them. “Get out!” he shouted. “He doesn’t need you to see him like this.” His voice broke on the last word. He turned back to the bed, his face working.

  Winter slid past him and paused, studying Brody. “Dear lord…” she whispered.

  Alex pushed his hand through his hair. “I’ve never seen a vampire in this state. I didn’t even think it was possible. Veris?”

  Veris shook
his head. “You’re the physician, doctor. I can’t think straight. Just do something.”

  Winter put her hand on Brody’s arm. “He’s human right now. And…not.” She frowned. “The symbiot is scrambled. Not quite dormant but badly traumatized.”

  “Blood will bring the symbiot back on-line,” Nayara said, from the foot of the bed. “The blood fever we feel is the symbiot reaching for sustenance. The proximity of fresh blood will orient it, so it can begin recovering. Even if he cannot drink, the presence of the blood will help.”

  Veris shook his head. “We take him home, first. We’ve got everything we need there.”

  “I’m not even sure we should pick him up,” Alex said. His frown was deep as he examined Brody.

  Winter lifted her hand. “I’ve woken the symbiot,” she said softly. “When he wakes again, he will need blood. Lots of it.”

  “We’ll steal more,” Sebastian said calmly, behind them. “Nial will need it, too. Can we please go back?”

  “Can we carry him, Winter?” Veris asked.

  “Now you can,” she said softly.

  Veris bent and scooped Brody up. He lifted him as if he weighed nothing and Taylor winced. She suspected Brody did weigh very little—it had nothing to do with Veris’ strength. Brody didn’t move.

  “What about the asshole out there?” Veris said, his voice hoarse.

  Kieran and future Veris were holding the man between them, an arm apiece.

  “His name is Dara,” Nayara said. “Part of fixing this will be taking him back to his own time.”

  “He’s from the fifth century?” Taylor asked, astonished.

  Veris shook his head, anger making his face work. “Kill the bastard,” he said. “Shipping him back to his own time isn’t enough.”

  Nayara’s smile was grim. “As you are about to learn, Veris, taking him back to his own time is possibly the worst thing we can do to him. It is not leniency which makes me do this. To kill him now would be a mercy in comparison.”

  Veris swallowed. “Fine. Let’s just go. Now.”

  “We can’t jump from in here,” David added. “We’re inside the lodestone, here. We need to move back along the passage, beyond the cell where Nial was kept.”

  “Lodestone?” Veris repeated, sounding startled. “Lodestone…” he said again, looking around.

  Taylor took Veris’ arm and walked with him to the glass door.

  The man standing between Kieran and future Veris curled his lip when he saw them. “None of you deserve to live. Freaks and abominations, all of you.” He had a strong accent, one which Taylor had never heard before. It was overlaid with a heavy South American tinge.

  “For that insult,” Veris told the man, “I will live another thousand years and spit in your eye.” He stopped in front of the man, who surged forward, as if he wanted to grab him. Kieran and future Veris held him back. He struggled, his face working furiously.

  Brody stirred weakly in Veris’ arms.

  The man, Dara, stared at Brody’s movement. The hatred in his dark eyes was pure and unshielded and Taylor shivered.

  This was Brody’s brother?

  Sebastian made a soft sound of satisfaction, behind them, and everyone turned. Sebastian held up a hard drive he had just torn out of the guts of a busted open computer tower. “This might be useful,” he said.

  At the same time, Dara lunged. Not toward Veris, which Taylor was braced for, but sideways. His hand, which had been hanging loose beneath Kieran’s grip on his upper arm, flashed sideways, too, to ram into Kieran’s stomach.

  Kieran spasmed, his eyes snapping open, then folded toward the ground.

  With one arm free, Dara lunged again, his arm flashing out toward Veris’ chest.

  Brody lifted himself up with a choked sound, flinging his arm over Veris’ other shoulder and flattening himself against his chest.

  Dara’s hand slammed into Brody’s back, instead.

  Brody cried out.

  Future Veris tore Dara away, his grip on the man’s neck. He squeezed and continued squeezing, until a sickening wet crunch sounded. Dara slumped like a stringless puppet in Veris’ hand.

  Veris dropped him with a disgusted twist of his mouth and wiped his hands.

  Nayara sighed, a soft vexed sound.

  Taylor spun to check Brody. He was still draped against Veris. There was a deep wound in his back.

  “It’s bleeding!” Taylor cried. “Why isn’t he healing?”

  “The symbiot is too weak,” Nayara said calmly.

  David raised his voice. “Everyone, out the back door, along the tunnel to where it changes to gray calcinate. Then, jump back to the house. Move it!” He bent and helped Kieran to his feet.

  They ran.

  Taylor kept her hand on Veris’ back, as he kept pace with the others. They filed through the narrow corridor, moving fast. There was no resistance anymore. The Columbians were keeping their distance. The tunnel was empty.

  Aran stopped twenty yards beyond demarcation line where the soft gray chalky stone of the outer caverns began, taking over from the black rock. He turned and held out his arms to David and Nayara. The pair stepped into them and they jumped, vanishing.

  The other jumpers gathered their passengers.

  “We need Marit,” Veris said.

  “No, we don’t,” Taylor said, putting her arm around his back. It squashed Brody between them. She beckoned to Winter.

  “Marit has to take Remi back,” Winter said, moving into her spare arm.

  “Remi!” Taylor called. “Stand behind me and hold on.” She looked at Veris. “No one gets left behind. Not today.”

  His blue eyes were steady. Calm. He nodded.

  Taylor took a deep breath as Remi slid his arm around her waist from behind. “Bend your knees, everyone. One, two, three!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  No one left the house on Martha’s Vineyard for the next four days. Everyone with the slightest medical knowledge remained locked in Veris’ home surgery over the garage, treating the two patients.

  The burden of the work fell to Alex, the two versions of Veris and Winter, with everyone else hovering to provide support.

  Sebastian acquired blood—liters of it. He also fetched whatever was requested of him which couldn’t be found in the house, most of it obscure medical diagnostic machinery, drugs and other supplies. Taylor admired his resourcefulness. He found items she would have been challenged to source, and this was not his world.

  Marit and the twins ran the house for Taylor, for she was too distracted to think of human hunger patterns. The humans, including Liberty, whom Rafe brought over from Spain, and London and baby Jason, and the future Veris, Kieran and Nayara, all needed nourishment.

  So did Brody.

  “The symbiot is still scrambled,” Winter explained, when she came to ask for well-salted broth. “It was tortured for as long as Brody. It will take time for it to orient itself, although it is responding to me, now.”

  Twenty-four hours after their return, Nayara came to Taylor. “We must return to our time, Veris and I. Our symbiots need restoration, too. We will come back in a few days, once we have recovered. I will leave Kieran here, for now, so he can recover. He is human and has no symbiot to cater to.”

  Nayara and the future Veris jumped to their undisclosed future time, leaving Veris, Alex and Winter to continue the treatment.

  Winter spared an hour to diagnose and treat Kieran, too. “Dara used one of the future weapons on you,” she told him, as she rested her hand against the wound in his side, just below the ribs. “A hidden, hand-held one, so the charge wasn’t as great as the gun he was using to spray the rest of the lab with.” She smiled at him, as Kieran winced and shifted under her treatment. “The charge on the weapon was a one-shot, All he did when he used it on Brody was deliver a knife wound. Which is just as well, because you have the constitution of a bison, while Brody…” She shook her head.

  Taylor shivered.

  A while later, wh
ile Kieran rested on the sofa, Winter went back to the surgery.

  Sydney and Rafe returned to Spain. “There’s research Rafe wants to do and we’re just tripping you up,” she told Taylor, as she bounced Liberty on her hip. “We’ll return when Nayara does, because I have no intention of missing her promised explanation.” She glared at David, where he sat in the armchair Veris used.

  David shook his head. “I have no idea what that explanation is,” he said. “I do not see the future any more than you do.”

  Sydney scowled and went away.

  Taylor turned to David. “Are you planning on staying here forever?”

  “Only until this business is finished. Do you mind?” His tone was pleasant.

  “Do you have a home somewhere?” Taylor demanded. “You appeared out of nowhere…”

  “As you do, when you jump,” he said, with a small smile. “I have a house in Greece. A small island of my own.”

  “That seems rather prosaic,” Taylor said. “Nayara treats you like royalty. I thought you’d have a palace, at least.”

  “I grew up in a palace. They’re over-rated,” David replied. He gazed around the sunroom, at the clutter of weapons, mixed with books and domestic items, including the leftover plates and cups from the last meal the twins had served. From the kitchen came the clatter of more dishes and Marit directing them. “The atmosphere here is soothing.” He raised his brow. “Your jaw is flexing.”

  Taylor sighed. “You stayed hidden for…what? Three thousand years? Now we can’t get rid of you.”

  David laughed. “I have been more bound up in your affairs than you realize. You and yours, Taylor, are unique.”

  “That doesn’t mean you get to move in,” she snapped.

  David got to his feet and moved over to where she stood with her hand on her hip. “Brody will recover,” he said, his voice low. “Nayara would not have returned to her own time if there had been any doubt in that.”

  Taylor spun away, to hide her reaction.

  On the second day, Nial climbed down the stairs to the sunroom, moving slowly. Sebastian had acquired fresh clothes for him, and in appearance, Nial had not changed.

  He came over to where Taylor was pretending to read a book, bent and kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”