Romani Armada (Beloved Bloody Time)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  The basement room was forty feet deep and about twenty wide. At the end closest to the stairs, a bar had been set up.

  There was nothing crude about the bar. It had the appearance of polished and waxed oak, with a carved front that curled into lions’ heads, holding up the jutting bar top. It was a throwback to another era.

  There were two barmen behind the bar, and a range of bottles and glasses on the shelves behind them. None of the bottles had labels.

  There were perhaps eighteen tables and chairs spotted around the room. Some of the tables were round and small. Four men clustered around the edges of the table would make it cozy.

  The other tables were bigger rectangles and these had benches sitting on either of their long sides. They were the party tables.

  “A speakeasy,” Ryan breathed. “I haven’t seen one of these since the twentieth century at least.”

  “Everyone who is allowed entry here comes in peace,” the gatekeeper told them, shutting the door behind him. “We let everyone leave the same way, but sometimes we have to coax them into it.” He nodded down at the tables below. “Like Rhydder. He’s an ornery young man, that one. He has...” He pursed his lips together. “Issues,” he finished.

  One of the long tables sat almost in the middle of the room, level with the end of the long set of stairs. A man sat at the table, bowed over with his head on his arm, the other hand clutching a nearly empty glass of some amber liquid.

  On either side of him, sprawled on the floor and over the ends of the table, lay comatose men. Humans, clearly. There were bruises and blood showing on all of them.

  The gatekeeper sighed. “He’s been here since last night. Some of the lads took exception to his looks and tried to pick a fight, even though we warned them to leave him alone. He was too far down in the rye to think anything through.”

  Kieren nodded. “Thanks. We’ll see him home.”

  He glanced at Ryan, who drew in a breath. “Let’s sort this out. We’re going to have to straighten up timelines before we can talk to him.”

  “I think you’re going to have to sober him up before you do aught else,” Brenden observed and started to climb down the stairs. “But that’s Cadeyrn for you.”

  Ryan paused on the very brink of the stairs as Kieren clattered down behind Brenden. His eyes widened. “Cadeyrn? The one they call The Shard...that Cadeyrn?”

  Cáel grabbed his arm and nudged him toward the stairs. “I’ve got you,” he murmured. “There’s no rail.”

  Ryan glanced at him fleetingly, and Cáel saw mortification and relief mixed together. “I noticed,” he said, his tone flat and monotone. As they worked their way down the uneven steps, he gritted his jaw. “I am going to beat this if it kills me, Cáel.” He spoke as low as Cáel had done.

  “I know you will,” Cáel assured him.

  They stepped onto the flat concrete of the basement and straightened up.

  Kieren stood over the still figure of Cadeyrn Rhydder, studying him with his head bent. He looked like he was trying to figure out how to start. “He’s still breathing,” he observed.

  Brenden was busy lifting bodies and laying them out on tables or the floor. There were no other patrons in the bar.

  “Where is everyone else?” Cáel asked.

  “Probably cleared out when the fight started,” Brenden said. “Folks around here understand not getting involved. It’s an early learned lesson in the DRC.”

  “I can imagine,” Ryan said dryly. He looked at Kieren. “Try waking him first. Let’s get a measure of how drunk he is.”

  Kieren lifted his hand as if he were about to comply, looking down at Rhydder. The man had long black hair that lay in a tangled, damp mess over his back and shoulders, and covered his features as he slept. It gave Kieren no convenient access to a shoulder or upper arm to grasp to wake the man.

  He shook his head and reached over to pluck the nearly empty glass from Rhydder’s fingers.

  The fingers clamped around the glass.

  With a roar, Rhydder surged upwards, twisting to face Kieren, his hand around the glass forming a fist that he drove in Keiren’s direction.

  Kieren ducked and stepped backwards in a catlike movement.

  Because he didn’t connect with a target, Rhydder’s momentum pulled him forward. He was still half-crouched between the bench and the table and flailed his arms as he couldn’t step forward to prop himself up. He folded over and jacked himself up on his arms. The glass shattered on the concrete beneath the bench.

  “That was the last drink they would give me, you son of a bitch,” Rhydder muttered, his speech slurred and foggy.

  Kieren shrugged. “You weren’t drinking it.”

  “Fuckin’ human...” Rhydder staggered over the bench, patently intent on taking Kieren apart. Kieren glanced around him quickly, sizing up his ground, then lifted his hand and beckoned Rhydder on with a “come here” gesture.

  Brenden wrapped his arms around the man from behind and squeezed. “I think you’ve done enough damage for the day, don’t you?”

  Rhydder struggled for a second, testing Brenden’s strength. Then he jerked his head back in a sharp, hard movement that caught Brenden on the mouth and chin. He flexed his arms and threw out his elbows and with another growl, shrugged off Brenden’s grip on him as Brenden shook his head to clear his vision from the head butt.

  Rhydder took a step forward, turned, and swung his fist in a deadly uppercut that landed square on Brenden’s jaw. The impact lifted the giant off his feet just enough to land him flat on his back between the table.

  “Fuck this,” Brenden cursed as he lay looking up at Rhydder. “Do it,” he said flatly.

  Kieren had climbed onto the end of the table Rhydder had been using as a pillow and edged up behind the drunkard. At Brenden’s command, he swung the bottle he was holding in a sharp, hard arc, up against the back of Rhydder’s head.

  Rhydder crumpled like a kicked-over sandcastle, to sprawl over Brenden’s lower legs in an untidy heap of wild hair and loose limbs.

  Brenden breathed heavily. “You fucking great moron!” he railed at the unconscious body as he pulled out one boot, then pushed against Rhydder’s dead weight with it to untangle the other.

  Cáel looked at Kieren, who shrugged and held up the broken neck of the bottle. “He had to be human to drink. So I dealt with him like I would any drunk human.”

  “With a bottle?”

  “I figured it was better than shooting the bastard.” Kieren replied.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Liping Village, East Yunnan Province, China, 2054 A.D.: Deonne didn’t remember falling asleep. She didn’t remember feeling tired enough for sleep. She only realized she had drift into slumber when she woke, some indeterminate amount of time later.

  There was a hand on her breast and lips against the nape of her neck.

  Her scream emerged, loud and piercing, before she even considered the matter consciously.

  The hand on her breast lifted to clamp over her mouth and shut in her scream. “For god’s sake, Dee,” Justin said, behind her. “It’s me.”

  His body was curved against hers where she lay on her side on the bed where Adán had insisted she lie. Adán had stood over her until she laid down, all while she insisted she wasn’t tired. But he had threatened to stay in the apartment until she obeyed her human cycle and tried to sleep.

  Justin must have sneaked into the apartment while she was sleeping. He was warm against her back. Human warm. She was used to the coolness of vampires, who had no metabolism to speak of and derived their warmth from the blood they fed upon.

  Deonne began to shake as her adrenaline dissipated. “Dear sweet heaven, Justin,” she whispered. “I didn’t think you’d dare come back.”

  “There’s been some developments—”

  Much as it had earlier in the evening, her apartment door shuddered aside under the impact of a blow or a kick. The lock gave way with a shriek of stressed metal and dropped to the flo
or.

  She struggled to sit up as Adán strode into the room, a black silhouette in the dark.

  Justin was faster. He seemed to levitate right over the end of the bed, such was his speed. He landed on his feet in front of the bed, facing Adán.

  Adán halted and straightened up. “Justin,” he said.

  Justin stood up from his defensive crouch. “Daniel?” He sounded puzzled, and suddenly deeply stressed.

  Deonne reached for the lamp next to her bed, suddenly wishing she had the computer power to simply call out an order for full lighting. She switched on the single incandescent globe and slid off the bed.

  Justin and Adán were staring at each other.

  Adán smiled. “Hello, old friend. I have been waiting for this moment since your woman told me your true name. I knew you would not stay away for long.”

  Justin blinked, a deep frown bringing his brows together. “Danny, what the fuck...?” His expression shifted and alarm widened his eyes. “Oh, Jesus Mary motherfucker... Adán Santiago.” He bent over, gasping. “No....” he whispered.

  Adán stepped forward and caught Justin under one arm, just as Deonne reached his other flank.

  “The bed,” Adán said firmly. “He forgot to keep breathing. He’ll pass out.”

  Between the two of them, they hauled Justin back to the end of the bed and sat him on it. Adán pushed at the back of Justin’s shoulders, forcing him to lean over and down. He glanced at Deonne. “How is this possible? He is human.”

  Deonne nodded. “When you jump back in time, your symbiot goes into stasis. Vampires become human while they are in the past.”

  Adán’s eyes narrowed. “But you can pass through time unchanged and in safety?”

  “Safety?” Deonne repeated, surprised.

  Justin lifted a hand up to grip Adán’s shirt front. He was still bent over, but his breathing had evened out. “You son of a bitch...you knew how I would react but you still had to make the big fucking entrance.” He lifted his head with effort and straightened up. His knuckles were white where they clenched about the handful of Adán’s cotton shirt.

  Adán remained still, his gaze on Justin. “Deonne screamed. While you were not here, I thought only to protect her. For you.”

  Justin pulled Adán down until he was forced to sit on the bed next to him. “I should fucking kill you for this. Do you know what sort of mess you’re creating, being here?”

  Adán nodded, his gaze sober, his black eyes steady upon Justin. “Deonne has begun to educate me. It is a pretty pickle...but we have been through worse, you and I, and lived to tell the tale.”

  “You don’t get to screw with time,” Justin croaked. “This isn’t a bunch of outback lads running around the bush with pistols, half-cut on bootleg. This is something you don’t get to argue with or outmaneuver.”

  Adán rested his hand on Justin’s shoulder. “I have missed you, you Aussie bastard.”

  Justin sighed. “You’re the one that left, remember?”

  “Alas, I do,” Adán said sadly.

  Deonne caught her breath in surprise as they leaned toward each other and hugged, their arms and chests and shoulders locked together.

  Her heart started racing as she tried to put together the puzzle from the clues they had let drop in their quick exchange. Adán and Justin knew each other from long ago. From Justin’s time as a human in Australia, perhaps. There was an implied shared history in their words...and that history may even have been intimate.

  She had been forgotten completely. Unsure of whether she was angry or upset about her exclusion, she got to her feet. Better to leave them to get reacquainted than spread her negative pall over their meeting.

  But as she rose, Justin’s hand snapped backwards. He grabbed her wrist, as he pulled away from Adán. “No, don’t go,” he said softly. He tugged her around and in front of him, then pulled her down onto his knee. “There’s no need to leave.”

  “Are you sure about that?” she asked him softly. “You’ve known Adán longer than I have.”

  “True,” Justin agreed easily.

  Adán was sitting back silently, making no move to shift away, or distance himself from them.

  “Were you lovers?” Deonne asked bluntly.

  Adán smiled and it was the way he smiled that told her she had nailed the truth.

  Justin licked his lips. “That was a long time ago,” he said awkwardly.

  “Tell her the rest,” Adán said softly.

  “What more could there be?” she asked, her heart pounding.

  “Adán is...” Justin grimaced.

  “I am Justin’s maker,” Adán said, his voice low. “That is a bond that mere ‘lovers’ does not adequately convey.”

  Deonne tried to think past the noise and chaos in her head. “How much more? You have been apart for centuries, I’m guessing. How strong a bond could that be?”

  Justin’s hand on her thigh tightened, the fingertips digging in. “It’s not what you think,” he murmured.

  Deonne removed his hand and stood up. “What am I thinking, then? Adán is your maker and that’s a permanent connection.” At Justin’s surprised expression, she felt her mouth turn down. “I’ve heard the chatter around the agency. You were not the only one educating me on the ways of vampires, Justin.”

  He blew out a breath. “Of course,” he said. “My apologies.”

  “Adán is your maker and you were lovers, once. That is a connection I can’t compete with.” She turned to leave, but Justin grabbed her hand once more.

  “Don’t go,” he insisted.

  Deonne glanced at Adán. He was still looking comfortable and interested.

  She removed Justin’s grip on her wrist with her free hand. “I think I should. I think you two need to talk.”

  She left the apartment while she still had the willpower to do so.

  * * * * *

  Detroit-Rocktown Supercity, 2264 A.D.: “How long have you known this joker, Brenden?” Ryan asked. He stood in the middle of the single-room apartment they were in, leaning on his cane as he swiveled around in a full circle to take in the fixtures and fittings, the battered furniture and meagre personal possessions spread across any horizontal surface. “This is a hovel,” he added, his voice very low.

  “For Detroit, this is luxury,” Brenden said. He and Kieren dumped Rhydder’s unconscious body on the battered and faded couch. There was no bed.

  Cáel glanced out the single grimy window. The top half of the window was missing the pane, and what looked like an old shirt was taped over the gap. “It was my understanding that every vampire was personally wealthy, if not obscenely rich, thanks to the powers of compound interest and time. Why would any vampire choose such conditions as these?”

  “Fortunes have been lost before now,” Ryan said. His tone was distant, for he was still absorbing the details of the apartment. “I’ve personally started from scratch at least three times.”

  “But you didn’t stay in the basement for long,” Cáel pointed out. “This apartment looks like he’s been here for years. There’s dust in the corners and tucked around the sofa feet that could only build to that level over a long time.”

  Kieren was quartering the room, physically moving around the edges and examining everything. “A year at least,” he confirmed. “What’s more is I think he’s been living as a human for most of that time. There’s food here, both scraps and things yet to be eaten. The bathroom facilities have been used. Often. And that sofa converts to a bed.” He scuffed at the ancient linoleum floor with his shoe. “The legs rest here when it is opened up, and they’ve been holding weight long enough to leave a depression in the linoleum.”

  “Is that possible?” Cáel asked both Ryan and Brenden, who were staring at Kieren.

  The pair of them exchanged glances.

  Ryan turned to face Brenden properly. “He’s your friend. What sort of life is this? Tell us what you know.”

  “He’s not making a first good impression,�
� Kieren added. “You really believe this…man can supply the sort of people I need?”

  “He can barely take care of himself,” Cáel added.

  Brenden crossed his arms. “He’s not a friend. I know him. I’ve known him for centuries. But we don’t see things the same way, so we don’t call each other friend.”

  “That’s a sterling recommendation,” Cáel muttered.

  “For what Kieren wants, Rhydder is the best I know,” Brenden growled. “He comes with his own people.” He was scowling. “You said you wanted a fully formed, ready-to-go army. Not travelers, you said, but dedicated fighters that could train in secret. Well, you’re looking at the general of that army.”

  The corners of Keiren’s mouth turned down. “I was being hypothetical. I didn’t for a moment believe there was an off-the-shelf solution.”

  “There’s nothing hypothetical about Cadeyrn Rhydder and what he and his people can do,” Brenden said flatly. “I think he’d take exception to being called off-the-shelf, too.”

  “The solution is ready-made,” Kieren clarified. “This man is…not.” He glanced at the sofa.

  “He’s rough about the edges, sure, but you can fix that. You’re supposed to be this great military leader, aren’t you?”

  “Paramilitary defense and security,” Kieren amended. “Good leadership depends upon good stock for good results.” He was still studying Rhydder, who lay face down on the sofa, his hair covering his face and the knuckles of one hand resting against the dirty floor.

  “Then why aren’t you with the Wardens, still, if you’re so gung ho on expertise?” Brenden demanded.

  Keiren’s jaw rippled, but he answered Brenden calmly enough. “The Wardens are flawed. I didn’t see it until now. I have trouble recognizing bigots.”

  Ryan grinned, as if there was a joke associated with Keiren’s confession that only he understood, and Keiren’s face flushed red.

  “If Rhydder and his people are so good, Brenden, why do they live like this?” Cáel asked, changing the subject.