Ryan drew him toward the couches by the window and Nayara followed, removing her clothing as she walked.
“We’ll speak of it once I can think straight,” Ryan said and lowered him to the couch.
* * * * *
Chronologic Touring Inc. – Sydney Office—2264 A.D.: When he returned to the Sydney agency, Justin broke with over two decades of habit by not stopping to speak to anyone on the way to his office. He also shut the door, closing out everyone including Rosalinda, who had followed him through the building from the reception area. He glimpsed her surprise and concern as he closed the door on her, but he just didn’t have the energy to spare to make her feel better.
He lowered himself into the chair behind the pristine desk and rested his head in his hands. He felt like shit, which didn’t make sense. He shouldn’t be feeling anything at all.
Briefly, he wondered if the psi trick they’d pulled on him and Demyan had left a residue that was screwing with his physiology. But he also knew he was reaching for an excuse to avoid acknowledging the truth.
The door opened without an announcement, forcing him to look up to see who it was.
Rosalinda stepped in and shut the door behind her. “Is there something I can do?” she asked softly. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but if there’s anything….”
Justin lifted his head to look at her. He forced back the irritation that rose at her question. “Probably not,” he said evenly. “This one is all on me.”
Rosa lifted a carrysack she was holding. “I have something for you.” She opened the sack and reached inside. “I did some backtracking and some fast talking…” She pulled out the blue shawl and laid it on the desk in front of him. “I thought you might like it back.”
Justin gently rested his hand on the silky soft, cozy fabric, feeling the smoothness under his fingers. Warm and smooth and silky…it wasn’t just the color of her eyes. It felt like her, too.
He scrunched the shawl up under his fingers and looked up at Rosa. “Thank you.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I do like having it back. A lot.”
But he felt even worse now.
Rosalinda smiled happily. “Good. Oh! And something came for you while you were in Sweden.” She dipped into the carrysack one more time and withdrew an envelope that she placed on the desk beside the shawl. “I’ve heard of delayed letters, but I’ve never had to handle one before. Is that real paper?”
Justin looked down at the browned, stained and crumpled envelope. “I’ve never seen one before, either,” he said. “It was paper once. When it started out. The agency’s archivists irradiate these things with plastic and polymer steel. It makes them almost indestructible. That’s how they get them to last until they deliver them.”
He turned the envelope around to read the address.
Justin Kelly, Travel Consultant, Sydney branch, Chronologic Tours, May 17, 2367 A.D.
It was Deonne’s handwriting.
Justin felt his heart lurch against his chest. He pushed the heel of his hand against his breastbone to ease the ache and looked at Rosa. “Give me a minute, huh?”
She smiled and left, closing the office door behind her with a soft click.
Justin took a deep breath and picked up the letter.
The irradiation process made the seal on the envelope permanent. No human could open the envelope without tools and assistance, but Justin tackled one corner and tore the material apart, using brute strength. He couldn’t harm the document inside without directly mangling it.
The letter – if it was a letter – fell onto the desktop with a soft thud, still neatly bi-folded.
He opened it and found he had to force it to stay open by holding the top and the bottom of the page apart. The folds had been made permanent along with the paper.
The sheet was only slightly tinged with age, for it would have been protected by the envelope. It looked like an ancient type of paper – rough on the edges and thick, thicker than the paper Justin had seen and handled on his two jumps into the past, when he had been training.
He started to read.
“My dearest Justin:
This is one of the hardest letters I’ve ever had to write. You should know that I love you, more than I realized even myself before all this happened.
I have met someone else. His name is Adán. Adán Xavier Santiago. He is a vampire, but not part of the agency. He has been wandering through time and we just…meshed. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that, Justin. He wants to be with me and he is willing to turn me, when I’m ready.
I love you and I am so sorry. There are no other words I can think of to ease this for you, but if there were, I would use them all.
Be happy.
Love,
Deonne.”
Chapter Thirteen
Macapá, Brazil, 2264 A.D.: Cáel stretched mightily, his tendons and joints straining and popping, then let his body relax back against the couch cushions. He was naked and sitting on the rug next to the couch, with one knee cocked, the foot pushing against the low, square table that served the couches.
“I’m not tired anymore,” he remarked.
Nia lay on her side on the table in front of him. She wore boots and nothing else and her hair flowed onto the tabletop like a molten river. She gave a lazy smile. “You should be asleep, after that.”
Ryan lay on his back on the couch. He was the only one that wore any clothing, but his garments were all unfastened and lying open, and his trousers were halfway down his thighs. The effect of nakedness was even more compelling because of it.
Ryan lifted his hand from the rug where it hung and rested it on Cáel’s shoulder. “You’re a machine. I don’t know how you keep up the pace, as a human.”
Cáel shrugged. “I’m highly motivated.” He wrapped his hands around his knee. “So tell me what brought you here. I’m worried.”
Ryan and Nia sat up. Nia reached for her shirt and slipped it on, but didn’t fasten it. Ryan swiveled so he was sitting on the couch properly, his feet on the floor, and hitched his pants up around his hips.
“Did you hear about the Warden, Kieren? Did he contact you? He said he would,” Ryan asked.
Cáel nodded. “I got two messages from him. Both of them made no sense at all. He said he was leaving the assignment and returning to barracks, that he’d find someone else. What happened?”
Nia described the events surrounding Deonne Rinaldi’s sojourn in Sweden and Keiren’s denial.
“He’s a psi?” Cáel asked.
“No,” Ryan said flatly. “He’s too old and he’s the most human human I’ve ever met, for all that he shares some of your machine qualities when it comes to his work. It’s his relentlessness to see his job through that tells me he’s not psi. None of them have that sort of focus and dedication.”
“Then what is he?” Cáel asked. “From what you describe, he used telekinesis to push Rinaldi out of the way of the train. That’s a psi talent.”
“Is it?” Nia asked, her voice mellow. “Psi were genetically modified to enhance human skills and abilities. No one who worked on the psi-file project ever claimed they had added extra talent.”
“A human talent?” Cáel said. “Humans have been able to do what psi do all along?”
“Not all humans,” Ryan qualified. “Nia and I talked this to death on the way down here and our best guess is that only a tiny portion of the human gene pool possesses psi talents. They would have been the stock that the psi-file project tapped into in the first place.”
“Natural psi?” Cáel ventured.
“Yes. That’s a good name for them,” Nia replied. She gave a grim smile. “We believe there are natural psi passing amongst humans, just as vampires once did. We think there may be many of them.”
Cáel frowned, sorting through the implications. “What makes you believe that?” he asked. “Something else you’ve not told me?”
“The something else is what got us on the train,” Ryan answered.
“That, and one other thing.” He sat forward earnestly. “Brenden’s people went back to Sweden to clean up after the event. Basically, they ensure that the story doesn’t spread. I don’t ask too carefully how they do it, but I imagine coaxing, bribery, coercion and some memory wiping is involved in the worst of the cases. But when they went back to the station and the apartment to take care of it, no one knew what they were talking about. Every human in the vicinity was clueless, including the apartment building security guard, who had spent the night with Kieren and his second. He swore the agency’s apartment had been empty for two weeks.”
“Someone got to them first,” Cáel concluded. He looked at Nia. “Natural psi?”
“It wasn’t Gabriel’s people. Pritti has been monitoring the area and would have alerted us if any of them tried to move through her shield.”
Cáel felt his brows lifting in surprise. “The natural psi can go undetected, while Pritti can sense psi filers? That’s…disconcerting. If they’re out there, it’s no wonder they’ve never been outed. They cover up their tracks better than you do.” He tapped his thumb against his knee. “Are you going to try and recruit them as allies?”
“We have to find them, first. If they even exist. This is all speculation so far,” Ryan replied.
“But it’s a sound theory,” Cáel replied. He tilted his head and studied Ryan. “What was the one other thing that got you on the train?”
Ryan sighed. “Gabriel has a new weapon, although we’re assuming that any psi with telekinetic powers can use it. It can kill humans and seriously disable vampires. I suspect it will kill psi-filers, too. They’re just as vulnerable to emotions. More so than humans.”
Cáel frowned. “You’ll have to spell it out for me,” he said. “After thirty hours on my feet, my brain is a bit foggy.”
Nayara leaned forward. “You saw it, Cáel. You said you saw Gabriel shoot at Ryan, just before the station blew.”
“I was running from the back end of the station. I heard…” He glanced at Nia. “I thought I heard you calling. I ran into the arrival lounge where Ryan and you were and got there just in time to see Gabriel fire.” He frowned. “You mean that is the new weapon? It was just a rifle.”
“It wasn’t a rifle at all,” Ryan said. In a few quick sentences, he explained what the dummy gun did and how the weapon killed. “The psi-filers have learned how to kill with their minds,” he concluded.
Cáel was silent for a long moment. “....sweet harmony,” he murmured at last. He got up and poured himself a drink from the decanters sitting on the sideboard under the window and brought it back to the couch. He sank down next to Ryan with a heavy sigh. “This changes things,” he said mildly.
“Yes,” Nayara agreed.
He licked his lips. “I can’t bring you into the Assembly. It’s a closed session. But they must be told. So you must tell me everything you know.”
* * * * *
The Agency Home Base – 2264 A.D.: Brenden looked up from his monitors as Justin dragged one of the picnic benches closer to the table that Brenden was using as a desk. The security area was deserted. Coldness pressed down from the rocky roof above, filling the cavern with sharp air that bit as Justin drew it into his lungs. No wonder everyone had found something else to do, somewhere else.
It didn’t seem to bother Brenden, though. “What the fuck happened to you?” Brenden said sharply. “You look like a traffic accident rolled you over.”
Justin laid the letter on the desk in front of Brenden. “Read it,” he said.
Brenden’s gaze sharpened as he studied Justin. Then he picked up the letter between his big thumb and forefinger, and turned it over. “This is a delayed letter,” he said.
“Just read it.”
Brenden unfolded the sheet and held it open. He scanned the contents quickly. “Christ on a pony,” he muttered and let the letter snap shut once more. He looked at Justin. “No,” he said flatly.
“‘No’, what?” Justin returned.
“You’re going to ask me for the time marker to get back to where she’s hiding. You want to go back to China and try and talk her out of this. I’m saying no, I won’t give you the marker.”
Justin put his hand on the desk. “Then bring her back here,” he said.
“Are you crazy?” Brenden shook his head. “Of course you’re loonie. You’re Australian.” He spread his arm out, pointing eastward. “Have you already forgotten what happened in Sweden? They came after her. Not you or Demyan. They went after the human, the one that is scaring the crap out of Gabriel because she has more influence than him amongst humans. I’m not bringing her back here unless Ryan insists, and he’s going to have break my bloody arm to make me do it.”
Justin clenched his hand, making a tight fist. “I have to talk to her,” he insisted. The need to speak to her, to ask why, was a tightly contained mass sitting in his chest, driving nearly all his thoughts.
Brenden sat back in his chair. “It’s a tough gig. Being dumped by anyone, anytime, sucks like hell. I feel for you. I do. She is a great lady, as far as I know her.”
Justin clenched his other fist. “Don’t.”
Brendan shook his head. “I’m not going to compromise their security in China just because you broke up with your girlfriend.”
Justin shot to his feet. “Don’t you even care who this Santiago jerk is? He’s not with the agency. He’s a free agent. Aren’t you concerned about what the twenty-third century people might be revealing to him?”
“It’s a concern, yes. But they’ve all been trained and Mariana has got them rounded up and isolated very nicely.”
“He’s from the twenty-first century!” Justin protested. “He’s worming his way amongst them. Making friends. They could be inadvertently setting up all sorts of time ripples.”
Brenden crossed his arms. “We would have noticed them by now if he did. I know more about ripples and waves and fucking with history than you ever bothered to learn during basics. Using time preservation as an argument to change my mind makes you look desperate and stupid.”
“I am fucking desperate!” Justin shot back, his voice rising.
Brenden looked at him steadily. “Uh-huh,” he agreed, his voice flat. “I rest my case.”
Justin hissed in a breath and turned away, mentally reaching for something – anything – that might convince the giant Spartan. His gaze fell once more on the picnic tables and benches dotted about the cavern, holding up a wildly eclectic collection of computers, servers, and peripheral equipment that had been scrounged, recycled or flat out stolen – all the tools Security needed to do their jobs.
He turned back to Brenden, an idea forming. “Can I use one of the terminals?” he asked, fighting to make himself sound sane and in control.
Brenden considered him for a long moment. “Sure,” he said at last. “You and a computer is a non-lethal combination. Just stay out of my way.”
* * * * *
Universal Warden Headquarters, San Francisco, 2264 A.D.: Kieren nodded to acknowledge the glances and open stares that greeted him as he walked across the compound toward the barracks. He gripped the straps of his duffel bag even tighter, fighting off the concern building inside.
Normally, returning to San Francisco was a mild relief. Returning to base signaled that his tour was over and usually meant the work had been successful. Once he was inside the closed borders of the city, a distinct relaxing sensation permeated his muscles and mind. When he was in San Francisco, he stopped thinking and just drifted.
For that reason he had never taken an assignment inside the city. He knew he would not be at his best, working in the city he had called home for the last nineteen years.
He couldn’t fully relax this time. He realized that he was bracing himself for his debriefing with Douglas. His report that he had filed before leaving Sweden had been detailed and truthful. It was the only way he knew how to deal with the Warden hierarchy. Truth had served him well for the nearly two decades he had
been with the group. Truth provided him with the support and back-up he needed in times of crisis, so he had withheld nothing from the report.
Was he imagining the frostiness in the glances being sent his way? Was he looking for something that wasn’t there?
Kieren turned his mind back to the last time he had arrived home and ran it through his mind.
There had been no stares at all, that time. He had crossed the compound almost exactly the way he was now and barely anyone had looked up from the work at hand, or their own trajectory across the quadrangle.
Now, they were looking. Noticing him.
He gripped the duffel bag harder, to maintain calm and let himself think. He didn’t allow his stride to falter or his direction to change. He gave away no clue that he had been alerted by the unusual vigilance.
He stepped into the main building and let the doors close behind him. He didn’t allow himself to hesitate, because normally he wouldn’t. He turned and headed for the old-fashioned staircase that gave access to the next floor. Douglas kept his office there and he would be waiting for Kieren to report in.
As he walked, he pondered the mystery. The only reason any of the Wardens would have taken notice of his arrival was because they had heard what had happened in Sweden. The information would mark him as different. As being not one of them.
But all possible sources that knew what happened there were agency vampires or their employees. Everyone else had mysteriously forgotten what had happened. The Agency was still looking into it and they would have no reason to contact the Wardens about it.
So if no one had passed the information on, the only possible remaining source was his commanding officer, Douglas, to whom Kieren had sent his full report.
Kieren let himself pause with his hand on the controls for Douglas’ office door. Had Douglas broken one of the cardinal Warden rules and told others what was in his report? Had he shared it?
Kieren opened the door and stepped inside.
Douglas sat behind his souped-up, overly-automated desk, staring at an embedded screen. He looked up. Either the grey hair or his youthful face was lying, but Kieren had never determined which.
Romani Armada (Beloved Bloody Time) Page 14