JANE'S WARLORD

by user

“His computer projects a three-dimensional image around him that makes him look like someone else.”

  She frowned. “If he can do that, how are we supposed to spot him?”

  “I have sensor implants,” Baran explained. “Xeran metabolism is different from the original human rootstock, so I should be able to detect him despite the visual shield.”

  “Besides, it’s not a particularly effective disguise,” Freika added. “The first time you touched him, you’d know something was wrong. If you’ll notice, he’s a lot taller than she thinks he is.”

  Jane looked closer and saw that the girl’s eyes were aimed roughly at chest level, as if that was where the man’s face was.

  “You have such a pretty voice,” Druas said. “What was that you were singing earlier?”

  “It’s just a little ditty,” the brunette said, a dimple winking in her cheek. Despite the slight slur in her voice and the fact that she was visibly tipsy, there was a flirtatious charm about the doomed woman that made Jane wince. “It’s called ‘Sweet Violets.’”

  “Sing it again. I want to hear it.”

  “Oh. All right.” Softly at first, then more loudly, she began to sing, “Scenes of my childhood—“

  “Undress for me,” Druas interrupted: There was a note of menacing anticipation in that cultured voice the brunette was evidently too drunk to recognize. “And keep singing.”

  That girl is about to be murdered, Jane realized, as the reality of what was happening sank in. Oh, God, I don’t think I want to see this.

  Obediently Mary went on singing as she unbuttoned her shabby dress in the flickering light of the candle. “... This small violet I pluck’d from mother’s grave...”

  “This is sickening,” Jane said, looking away.

  “Granted,” Baran said, his eyes cold and grim, “but I’ve got to review it anyway. I need to know as much as possible about the way this bastard operates.”

  She subsided. He had a point.

  Mary lifted the gown over her head, leaving only a thin linen chemise that was stained and torn in places. Folding the gown, she put it on the chair before going to work on the buttons of her chemise. Work-roughened fingers busy on the horn buttons, she turned toward Druas, still singing. “... They all have left me in ...”

  There was a blur of movement, so fast Jane almost missed it. The girl’s eyes widened as she made a choked, helpless sound.

  Two enormous hands were wrapped around her neck, hoisting her into the air as her feet kicked helplessly.

  Druas was much, much taller than she was.

  “I always like this part best,” the killer told her, his voice bright, laughing.

  She kicked at him, clawing at the hands that were slowly choking her to death. Her open mouth gaped as she fought to breathe, her face darkening.

  “You’re going to be famous, Mary Jane Kelly,” Druas purred, holding her effortlessly. “For hundreds of years the photograph of what I’m going to do to you will make people stare in horror, wondering what you used to look like before I sliced away your face.”

  Her blue eyes widened helplessly in terrified realization.

  “That’s right, Mary, sweet Mary,” he said. “You’re Jack the Ripper’s last victim.”

  Jane stared at the trid in helpless horror as her head began to swim. “Sweet Jesus God.”

  Mary’s face darkened still more, the whites of her eyes going red as tiny capillaries burst. Her frantic kicks weakened.

  Finally Druas tossed her on the bed to flop bonelessly. Something silver flashed, followed by a spray of red flung by the knife as he made his first cut.

  Baran stepped toward Jane as she swayed, looking as if she was about to fall in a heap. He caught her elbow, and she sagged against him. “Stop the playback, Freika.”

  “But we need to—“

  “Later.”

  Before the wolf could argue, Jane tore herself from his arms with surprising strength and bolted across the room. Baran strode after her as she raced into a small alcove and collapsed on her knees in front of a shiny porcelain chair his computer identified as a toilet. Flinging her head down over the hole in its seat, she began to retch violently.

  Baran watched for a moment, instinctively trying to maintain his emotional distance, but her misery was too much for him. With a sigh he knelt beside her and helped her gather her long hair out of the way. She ignored him, heaving in helpless rolling spasms. “Jane, he’s not going to get the chance to do that to you. That’s why I’m here.”

  She looked up at him, wild-eyed, her face tinged green. “You mean”—she stopped to gasp—“I really am a target for Jack the fucking Ripper?”

  She jerked her head down and started heaving again, more violently than before.

  Wincing, Baran could do nothing for her but support her head. He’d seen so much bloodshed and suffering over the years that normally he was able to maintain a certain detachment.

  Yet though he’d done his share of killing, there’d been something .different in the way Druas had attacked Mary Kelly, a vicious joy that was deeply disturbing.

  And then there was Jane. Watching her struggle to control her rioting stomach, he felt a twist of pity. She’d fought him with such clever bravery, it hurt to see her reduced to this helpless, sick horror.

  Finally the spasms were over. She climbed wearily to her feet and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Refusing to meet his eyes, she mumbled, “Thanks.”

  Baran shrugged, battling the uncomfortable impulse to put his arms around her. That, he knew, was a very bad idea. It was one thing to feel a healthy lust for her, but anything more was an emotional trap he couldn’t afford to fall into.

  So he hung back as she stepped to a small counter with a basin in the center and twisted a knob. Water poured from a metal projection over the basin as she picked up a small brush and started a procedure his computer called brushing her teeth.

  Finally she turned to look up at him again. Her skin was still tinted a faint, unhealthy green. “All right, I’m ready. Let’s finish looking at the recording.”

  Baran frowned at her. Knowing the Xeran taste for overkill, he suspected it would only get worse. ‘That’s not necessary. I’ll review the rest.”

  She shook her head, that delicate chin taking on a stubborn angle. “No, we need to stop this guy. He can’t be allowed to go on doing this.”

  “Granted, but that’s my job.” Leaning a hip against the countertop, he studied her. “You don’t need to be involved in it. Especially considering that the trid is only going to get worse.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Jane swallowed and took a deep breath. “But I have to understand this guy, what motivates him. What his M.O. is. And the only evidence we’ve got is what’s on that recording.”

  “You’ll be running in here again in five minutes,” Freika said from the doorway. “He starts getting artistic next.”

  “Then I’ll run,” she snapped. “And I’ll come back and I’ll watch the rest.”

  Any other civilian woman he knew would have been glad to let him handle the whole bloody, revolting mess. “Jane, it’s not necessary.”

  “Yes, Baran, it is. Look, you guys don’t know this time, and you don’t know this culture. You need my help, and that means I have to know as much as I can about that sick bastard.”

  Baran sighed, caught between admiration for her courage and irritation at her stubbornness. “Actually, I’m more than capable of handling the hunt without your input. Whatever I need to know about your time, my computer implant can tell me.” And if the recording did get worse than what they’d seen already, she didn’t need to be exposed to any more of it. He didn’t want her nerve to break completely. Not when she was supposed to be the bait.

  He frowned. What if something went wrong? A chill rippled over him as his mind instantly supplied a terrifying image of pretty, delicate Jane confronting that sadistic bastard. All her courage, all her beauty and intelligence, all destroyed, flayed away by Druas an
d his knife. Like Liisa.

  No, he decided, straightening his shoulders. Not Jane.

  This one he was going to save.

  Jane glowered at Baran, unaware of his newfound resolve. “Look, it’s my life that’s on the line here! I’m the one that bastard wants to slice like bacon. I deserve to know—“

  “Only as much as I think you need to,” he told her, striving for patience. “You’re a civilian, Jane. And I’m not. My job is to hunt Druas....”

  “And mine is to be the bait.” There was a hot, angry glitter in her dark eyes, a bitter set to her mouth. “Just writhing on the end of the hook, waiting for that creep to take a bite. Screw that. If you were in my shoes, would you want to be kept in the dark?”

  She had a point. Maybe she did need to know.

  And maybe once she found out what Druas was capable of, she’d obey orders. He’d already discovered just how difficult Jane could make things when she chose, despite his Warlord strength and cybernetic implants. They’d both be a lot safer if she stopped questioning him. “All right.”

  Mouth open as if to launch another argument, she blinked. “What?”

  “Maybe a good look at what Druas does for entertainment would convince you to let me do my job.”

  Two minutes into the rest of the recording, Jane bitterly wished she hadn’t insisted on seeing it. She forced herself to endure anyway.

  At first she tried to pretend it was some poorly made B-movie she had to review. But no director would have kept the camera focused on what Druas did to Mary Kelly. She’d seen cows butchered with less vicious brutality.

  In sheer self-defense she tried to think like a cop, noting which hand he used and how deeply he cut. She wasn’t a forensic scientist, but it was obvious from the easy way he hacked into the body that the man’s .strength was terrifying.

  Yet no matter how Jane fought to stay detached, her stomach heaved with every slice. Her head began to pound in deep, rhythmic surges in time to her heart. She felt dizzy. Locking her spine into a rigid column, she concentrated on staying upright.

  Every time Druas did something particularly nauseating, Jane was conscious of the cool, assessing gazes of Baran and the wolf. They’re wondering how long it will take me to pass out.

  She told herself savagely that she’d been exposed to carnage before. There’d been that shotgun murder last year, when she’d beaten the cops to the scene. She’d held it together then, despite the boneless sprawl of the body in the middle of the street, surrounded by blood and skull fragments; Yeah, it had haunted her, but she’d dealt with it.

  And God knew Jane had covered so many traffic fatalities she’d gone numb in sheer self-defense. Then there were all the murder trials she’d reported on. After hours spent listening to gruesome expert testimony about wounds and the suffering of the victims, she should have been inured.

  But none of that had prepared her for actually seeing it happen, listening to the killer hum in absent pleasure like a workman singing to himself over some pleasant task.

  As the endless seconds ticked past, Jane realized that watching this would leave scars she would carry in her mind until the day she died.

  It was only when Druas started cutting Mary’s heart out that she jumped up and whirled away. “When you catch this guy ...” She had to stop to swallow bile. “Are you going to kill him, or just arrest him?”

  “I’m going to kill him.” Baran spoke with such utter emotionless conviction, she knew he meant every word.

  Jane took a deep breath. “Good.”

  None of the usual moral arguments about the rule of law or the value of even a murderer’s life meant anything when it came to Kalig Druas. He had to be eliminated just as a rabid dog has to be put down. Not for vengeance or even for justice, but simply because he was a threat to every other human being he met.

  When he finally rose from his kill—Jane could feel that last image of Mary Kelly’s mangled body searing itself into her brain—Druas turned and picked up a mirror standing beside the bed. The face he saw reflected there was smeared with blood, flecked with crimson bits Jane had no desire to identify.

  He addressed the mirror in a foreign language, the words incomprehensible, the triumphant, gloating tone all too clear. She realized he must be talking to his perverted subscribers. His mouth was twisted into a feral grin, his eyes wild in the mask of gore surrounding them.

  Then the image, at last, winked out.

  “What did he say?” Jane managed. She was standing at the other end of the room as far from the trid as she could get. Her lips felt cold and numb. She suspected she’d recognized a word, and found herself hoping she was wrong.

  For a long moment, neither man nor wolf answered. “He said, ‘Wait until I get to Tayanita,’” Baran said.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  He barely got to her before her knees buckled.

  Jane felt. . . strange. She knew she should be asking questions, making plans, but all she could seem to do was sit on the couch, staring sightlessly into space. It was a comfortable couch, thickly padded in cream leather. It had cost her a thousand dollars. She tried to concentrate on the feel of that very expensive couch, tried to lock her thoughts on it instead of... other things. She closed her eyes. And saw blood spray across the soft pale leather.

  Her eyes flew open.

  Baran was talking. Jane struggled to listen to him, but it was difficult when she could hear Druas humming to himself as he sliced....

  Stop that. Freika turned off the trid. It’s over.

  But it kept playing in her mind, flashes of red horror, seconds of incomprehensible evil caught in an endless feedback loop.

  “... been fighting Xer since I was sixteen,” Baran was saying. She tried to switch her attention to his words, to the movement of his mouth. It was a very nice mouth. “I know how he thinks....”

  “I very much doubt that,” she said, her voice low.

  He rubbed a thumb across an eyebrow. “All right, I don’t. But I am more powerful than he is, and anything he tries, I’ll be ready for.”

  How could anybody be prepared for the kind of mind that could conceive of the things Druas had done to Mary

  Kelly?

  And how could anybody want to watch him? That was the question her mind kept circling back to. People had subscribed to his recordings, had effectively paid him to butcher Mary Kelly the same way men in her own time would subscribe to an Internet porn service.

  God, she was cold. Shivering, she looked around dully until she spotted the colorful crocheted throw lying over the back of the couch. Its expanse of warm reds and yellows looked like a spill of sunlight across the pale leather. Jane reached up, tugged it down, and wrapped it around herself, moving slowly, clumsily.

  She still felt cold. She wondered if she was in shock. The question emerged so suddenly even Jane was caught off guard. “Why didn’t you save her?” Baran and Freika, engaged in an intense low-voice conversation, looked up as if surprised she was capable of speech! “You could have stopped him before he murdered Mary Kelly. Then that woman he killed here tonight wouldn’t have died, either. And I wouldn’t have had to see—“ She stopped, vaguely ashamed that she’d even mentioned herself in the same breath as the others,

  Baran sat down beside her. There was a tightness around his mouth, a shadow in his eyes. Futuristic warrior or not, the trid had shaken him. She was glad. She wasn’t sure she’d want to be around a man who could watch that kind of butchery without being affected. “I couldn’t have saved Mary Kelly, Jane.”

  “Why not?” If he couldn’t save Mary, did that mean... ? “You said you were stronger, faster....” Her voice rose. Jane could hear the edge of panic in it and knew she should reign in her fear. She also knew that kind of control was currently far beyond her meager resources.

  “I couldn’t have saved her because I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, but why? Why didn’t you?”

  “For one thing, because TE didn’t transport
me back to 1888. But even if they had, it wouldn’t have done any good. Druas murdered Mary Kelly, and there was nothing I could have done to stop it. If I’d tried, I would have failed.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He shook his head. “Because humans have been time traveling for sixty-five years, and none of them have ever changed history. I’ll only be able to save the victims I’m supposed to save.”

  There was a strange, high buzzing in her ears. She swallowed hard. “Are you supposed to save me?”

  “Yes.” His gaze was fierce and certain.

  “You said before you didn’t know.” Jane licked her lips and fought the impulse to scream. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop. “You said they hadn’t told you. Unless ... I’m supposed to die?” Oh, God! To end up like Mary Kelly ...

  “No, you’re not going to die.” Something in his determined gaze steadied her. He closed a big, hard hand around hers, encircling her chill fingers in strength and warmth. “I swear to you, I will save you, Jane Colby. Druas is the one who’s going to die.”

  The confidence in his voice made the fear recede. She felt her thoughts clear slightly. “So you’re saying, what? You couldn’t have stopped it because it was fate? We have no real control over what happens to us?”

  Baran waved a strong hand in dismissal. “No, you misunderstand. Look, time travelers are not suddenly inserted into history. They’re part of the time plane even before they make their Jumps. Hell, before they’re even born.”

  Jane stared at him, wondering if he really wasn’t making sense or whether her battered mind simply wasn’t processing the logic. “What are you talking about?”

  “Let me see that.” He reached out and gently tugged the throw from around her shoulders. “My computer says that people in your time see time as a river. But it’s more like this.”

  “Time’s a giant blanket?” She blinked, puzzled.

  “More or less.” He spread the throw across their laps, then picked up one of the tassels that fringed its edges. His long fingers separated the strands down to one. “Let’s say this piece of yarn is a life.” He pointed at the knotted base of the tassel. ‘This is the moment of conception, and at the other end is the instant when decay ends and the body ultimately vanishes. Take a cross section of the string at any point, and that’s the now, the instant you’re in right at this second. Does that make sense?”