“Of course. Do you know what an eddy is?”
“A swirl in a river, why?” He glanced towards the office door. He should get in there. The sooner he ended this operation, the sooner he could get home. He wanted to shut the door, lock it and jump back to Martha’s Vineyard. There, he could reset and refocus.
The coffee was better there, too. Even in the middle of the night, as it still was, there would be someone there to talk to. Above all, the idea of talking—about anything but Kristijan Zoric—sounded wonderful.
“Sound behaves the same way as eddies, if the conditions are right,” Remi said. “For instance, sitting here in this chair, if one is down low enough, makes it possible to hear everything that is said in the kitchen. It’s an anomaly.”
Neven turned to look at him squarely. “How long did you eavesdrop for?” he demanded. Frustration gripped him. When would Remi stop sneaking around, hatching plans?
“Long enough.” Remi crossed his legs. “You jumped back somewhere. Through time.”
“So?”
“It upset her.”
“First jumps usually are upsetting,” Neven told him. “I have to train London enough so she can get herself out of trouble if she finds herself back in time. Her personal history has not been altogether pleasant.”
“History is dangerous?” Remi said, sounding genuinely surprised.
“More than you could possibly know,” Neven assured him.
Remi stood up. “Take me back,” he said. “Take me to my past.” His tone was almost pleading.
Neven forgot all about the office and espresso roast. He stared at Remi, scrambling to reorient himself. “Take you back?”
“You can do that. You took London back to her past. You could take me back to mine. I want to see…” He swallowed. “People,” he added softly.
It wasn’t what he had been going to say, Neven realized. “London took herself back to her past. I was the passenger.”
“You’re a jumper, too. You could take me back.”
“I could,” Neven agreed. “Only, it’s not that simple.”
“Why isn’t it? We’re speaking of only two hundred years. I know jumpers have gone back farther than that. Back into the antiquity.” Remi’s gaze locked with his. “From the little you have said—and yes, what I’ve overheard, too—I can tell you’re good at jumping. You’ve learned how to maximize travel. You could take me back.”
Neven drew in a breath, giving himself time to marshall his answer. Desperation showed in Remi’s face. Whatever this was, he wanted it badly.
“Who is it you want to see?” Neven asked gently.
Remi’s face closed over. The emotion in his eyes shuttered. “Does it matter?” he said carelessly. “Why are you prevaricating? Maybe you can’t do it, after all.”
The reflective offensive. Did Remi want this badly enough to let his actions be so transparent?
Neven considered him. “Oh, I can make the jump. I can even have you guide it, so we land exactly where you want to go. That’s the traditional way jumps happen. I just don’t think you realize what will happen if you go back to…wherever you want to go.”
“I’ll be in the past.” Remi shrugged. “Did you think I failed to believe time travel was a reality? Why do you think I am standing here beggaring myself, if I did not believe?” He was growing annoyed now. He was feeling humiliated, because Neven had not fallen in with his request.
Neven shook his head. “Exactly, Remi. You’d be in your past. To begin, you must guide the jump, because you will not tell me where you want to go. That means you will return to your body that exists in that time. The version of you in the past will cease to exist while you take over that body. You will see your past as if you were moving through it all over again, only you won’t be the person that you were when you lived through it the first time.”
Excitement built in Remi’s eyes. “That might be a good thing,” he muttered.
“Most likely, it will not,” Neven said sharply. “I could end up a long way away from you. Across the globe, perhaps. You would be stuck in that time until I found you again. Think about that, Remi. Think about the time you want to get back to and what happens in the days and weeks after that one moment you are thinking of. Do you want to be in that body when those things happen?”
The anticipation in Remi’s face faded. “You won’t take me back.”
Neven wondered if Remi was aware of how much disappointment was in his voice. Neven’s heart gave a little thud and his gut tightened. “I would take you back if I thought I could bring you back here safely. I just can’t afford to jump blindly as you are asking me to.”
Remi scowled. “I think you are afraid.”
Neven laughed. “Of course I am afraid! Jumping terrifies me and it should scare the hell out of you, too!” He grabbed Remi’s arm. “Come here.”
“Why?”
“I will demonstrate why you should not wish to go back to your person past. Tell me where you were on the day that Kristijan met London. I know you remember that day. I’m sure it is engraved upon your memory. Vampires forget nothing and you have more reason to remember that time, than all the others.”
Remi’s scowl grew darker. “I don’t want to go there,” he said shortly.
“Too bad,” Neven breathed. “Think about it, Remi. What were you doing, six years ago, when Kristijan told you he’d met someone else?”
The anger in Remi’s eyes told Neven he’d recalled the moment. Neven grabbed him by the scruff and jumped.
* * * * *
This wasn’t Neven’s timeline, so he was not pulled back into his own body, for no version of him existed here. However, he was separated from Remi as he had suspected he would be. Neven blinked, looking around the compact living room. There were a dozen men sitting or standing, or pacing around the room. One of them, Neven recognized. Dragović. He was considerably smaller in size than the robust man in Serbia.
The room had the air and impersonal quality and the neutral smell of a hotel. Neven glanced through the window and saw the London Eye circling on the bank of the Thames. The hotel was somewhere in St. James, then. Perhaps even Chelsea.
There would be a bedroom suite off the room. He turned to glance at it. The door was closed and from behind it came the sound of hard voices. Not quite shouting, but getting there.
Dragović completed one of his circuits and came face to face with Neven. His mouth dropped open. “Who the fuck are you?” he said in Serbian.
“The security decoy for your boss,” Neven said, recalling a ruse that Brody had used on one of his badly gone wrong jumps. Neven injected a strong English accent.
Dragović processed that, then relaxed. Then he smiled. “Smart. You English fellows know something about security.” He clapped Neven on the back. “You’re almost perfect.”
“He’s too old to be Kristijan,” one of the other men said, from across the room.
Neven almost smiled.
Then the door to the bedroom opened. It was flung aside and Remi strode out of the room. Over his shoulder, Neven could see Kristijan standing there, his face calm.
Remi spotted Neven. “You. Come with me,” he said shortly.
Neven breathed a sigh of relief. Remi was staying in character for the time and place. He hadn’t spoken Neven’s name.
Neven followed Remi out of the room, into a bland, neutral hotel corridor that could belong to any hotel the world over. Remi shut the door, then gripped Neven’s jacket. “Get me the fuck out of here,” he breathed. Distress was pouring off him in almost visible waves.
“Did you leave the bedroom, the first time you lived through this?” Neven demanded.
“Why? What does it matter?”
“If you didn’t, then you have to go back in there, Remi. You can’t change the past. You have no idea what you will screw up in the future if you don’t go back. Think. Did you leave the room that night?”
Remi growled. It was an inhuman sound. “Yes, damn it,”
he breathed. His accent was stronger, as if he had forgotten to contain it. The accent was pure French, not Creole. “I walked along the river. For hours. When I got back, we argued again. And again…” His voice trailed off.
Neven sighed. “Okay. Let’s get you back.” He pulled on Remi’s arm and held him. Remi sucked in a breath as Neven jumped.
* * * * *
Something screamed at him from somewhere in the timescape. Neven tried to ignore it. For linear jumps like this, he was just the taxi. He had to play deaf and dumb and let Remi lead.
Only, the bookmarks were not just flashing at him, they were reaching out and grabbing him, pulling him down. He recognized them. They were the same string of glistening pearls that he had seen when London had driven the jump back to the same day, just a while ago.
Only now the pearls were baby suns, overwhelming in their power and heat and energy. He was pulled towards them, as helpless as any ship caught in a gravity well…
* * * * *
It was the city of London again. The same tree, the same view.
Remi choked. “That’s Kristijan. London… Gods and angels, Neven, what are you trying to do to me?” The pain in his voice was undisguised.
“It’s not me,” Neven murmured, staring at the couple. “I don’t know why we’re here. I had no choice but to come here, though. I think…it’s a loop that is closing. You were meant to see this.”
“Meant to?” Remi repeated, staring at the couple under the plane tree. “Why would anyone—any thing—insist upon this?”
“I don’t know why,” Neven told him. “There will be a reason, that you might find out someday in the future. That’s how it works.”
Remi shook his head. “I’ve seen enough,” he said bitterly. “Take me back. To Serbia, this time.”
Neven thought of the string of glowing suns. “I’ll try,” he said. Remi grabbed his shoulders and he jumped.
* * * * *
Another park. Still London. Still the Thames flowing in the background. Dawn, with fog rolling thickly across everything.
There were two men sitting on one of the dark green park benches overlooking the river. No one else was around, for it was still early, damp and cold. Neven recognized the two men on the bench. He also recognized the stiff upright posture of both of them. Tensions were high. Emotions were blazing, even though both of them were contained and still.
Remi turned to confront Neven. His face was working. “You said you would take me back home!” he said, keeping his voice down. The fury, though, was clear. “Why bring me here?”
“I didn’t,” Neven said. He looked over his shoulder at the two men. The younger version of Kristijan was getting to his feet. Looking down at Remi. “You came here after you argued all night in the hotel, didn’t you?”
Remi pushed his hand through his hair. “What does it matter? Why must I see this again?”
“I told you, I don’t know,” Neven said, watching Kristijan stride down the tow path, his step light and his attitude jaunty, while Remi slumped on the bench, all the fight gone from him. “Perhaps it is me who is meant to see this.”
Remi grasped the idea as if it was a life preserver. “Yes, so you can fully understand what a bastard he was!”
“You loved him.” Neven pointed to the dejected figure on the bench. His head was bowed now.
“So what?” Remi cried, his voice rising. “If you have any common decency, get me out of here.”
Neven nodded. Remi gripped his jacket, as if he was the preserver. Neven jumped.
* * * * *
Still London town. Neven could smell the river even in this quiet, narrow and tree-lined street. There were luxury cars parked along it and lots of apartment houses. Flats, they called them here. They were both standing on the pavement—the footpath—looking down the road.
Remi let out a breath that actually shook. “Where are we now?” he demanded.
“I think…Chelsea. You’ve been here. Don’t you recognize it?”
Remi looked around. A slash formed between his brows. It wasn’t temper, but discomfort. Agony, perhaps. This roller coaster that time had them on was taxing him, tapping into depths in Remi that Neven had not suspected existed.
“This is Chelsea. It’s not a street I know, though,” Remi said, his tone calmer. He was relaxing a little more.
A set of shop-front buildings was just ahead of them, with elegant awnings over the pavement. As they watched, the door to one of the businesses opened, with a soft electronic chime.
London stepped out.
Remi turned his face away, so she would not see him. Neven held still. London was not seeing anything properly right now. The tears in her eyes would be blinding her. She turned away from them and walked unsteadily along the footpath, until she had left the small commercial strip of buildings behind and was beside the brick and paling fences and immaculate pocket-sized gardens of the residential buildings along this street.
Instinctively, Neven followed, moving slowly so she wasn’t alerted. Remi followed. Even his footsteps were silent.
They stopped under the awning at the far end of the commercial buildings and Neven turned to look in the window. It was a jewelry store. An exclusive one. The first price tag he spotted was a hand-written tag half the size of his thumbnail attached to a pink pearl bracelet. The amount written on the tag in soft pencil made Neven’s heart creak.
Remi tapped his shoulder and pointed to London.
London was leaning against the three-foot-wide brick column that made up the corner of someone’s garden fence. She reached into the leather bag over her arm and pulled out a mobile phone and dialed with her thumb. She had to stop twice as she did it, once to wipe her eyes quickly and once to delete wrong keys.
She rested her head against the brick as the call went through, her eyes closed.
“International exchanges,” Remi breathed.
“You can hear that?”
He nodded. Then he frowned. “That click and burr…that’s Serbia.”
“She’s calling Kristijan,” Neven guessed. “Tell me what you hear.”
London lifted her head. “Kristijan. You son of a bitch. You did something, didn’t you?”
Silence. Neven looked at Remi.
“London, my sweet. How are you?” Remi whispered.
“Three job agencies, Kristijan!” London cried into the phone. “Three of the best and not a single one of them will help me find a job. You did something. I know you did!”
“Perhaps your reputation as the wife of a business entrepreneur has proceeded you,” Remi murmured. “He sounds amused,” he added.
London squeezed the phone and wiped her eyes. “That’s how it’s going to be, isn’t it? You don’t want me to work. Why didn’t you just say that? Why put me through all…this?”
“I thought you might profit and learn from the experience. You so rarely bother to listen to me anymore.”
Neven sighed. The sickness was back in his belly. Guilt writhed for something he had not done but felt responsible for, anyway.
London dropped her bag between her feet and covered her eyes with one hand. For a moment, she didn’t speak and Neven could see her throat working. Her chest hitching. “Is there anything else I should learn, Kristijan? I don’t think I could bear to go through another of your lessons.” Her voice was strained.
“I’m sure you’ll know when there is. I’ll see you here in ten days, London,” Remi murmured. Then, “He’s hung up.” He lifted his head.
Neven turned cautiously to look at London again. His heart squeezed painfully. She had dropped the phone and turned to face the brick column. She had her arms up, pillowing her face as her shoulders shook.
Remi’s hands were coiled into tight fists as he stared at her.
“Let’s go back,” Neven murmured.
“I was there, for that call,” Remi said. His voice was hoarse. “I sat in the room and listened to him say those things. It was a normal phone. I couldn’t hea
r what she was saying. I didn’t hear how…” He shook his head. “Yes, let’s go back.”
* * * * *
They were both sprawled on the carpet. The aroma rising from the tufts was abominable. Neven groaned in disgust and pushed himself up into a sitting position.
Remi was already sitting, his head hanging.
“I tried to warn you,” Neven explained. “I tried to explain.”
Remi lifted his head. A bleak look filled his eyes. “You couldn’t control where we went.”
“It happens that way. Not often. Sometimes time itself has an agenda. At least, it feels that way when you’re in the middle of a loop.”
Remi shook his head. “Are all jumps like that? Are they all…fraught?”
Neven hesitated. The strict truth was a technically complex one. If it was a compound jump, or if he was leap frogging, then the jump could be straight-forward, like heading back to Martha’s Vineyard for better coffee. “If it’s a jump that you direct, then yes,” he said, “it will always be stressful. It’s your life. Your past. All you will see, no matter what you see, will be the mistakes, the bad decisions. Even if you go back to a happy time, you’ll only remember that the happiness didn’t last. It’s a human thing that vampires can’t avoid because they have even longer lives, filled with even more harsh decisions.”
Remi was listening to him. None of his usual derision marred his expression. His mouth wasn’t curled up at the edges as if he might laugh at any second. “I am beginning to see why you would not take me back to…where I wanted to go. I didn’t understand before. Now, I think I do.”
“Back to France?” Neven asked, remembering the pure French accent Remi had let slip and the speculations in Jovan’s profiles of the members of Kristijan’s household.
Remi hesitated. “Yes,” he admitted, his voice low.
It struck Neven with the strength of a blindingly obvious hindsight realization, as one of Jovan’s phrases echoed in his mind. Possibly high-born French, but he hides any Imperial traces with misdirection and distortion, as most vampires have learned to do….
“The Revolution…” Neven said softly, watching Remi closely.
Kiss Across Worlds (Kiss Across Time Book 7) Page 19