“You know who I’m working for now, don’t you?” Brenden demanded.
Rhydder considered him for another long moment. “Sure,” he said at last. “I watch the nets, just like everyone in Detroit does. It’s the only entertainment to be had.”
“Hacked, I’m sure,” Kieren guessed.
Rhydder rolled his eyes. Then he looked at Ryan. “You’re Deasmhumhain.” Then his gaze travelled to Cáel. “Stelios,” he said slowly. “Worlds Assembly. I’ve seen you on the nets, too.” His gaze moved to Kieren. “You, I don’t know.” His gaze lingered. “But I never forget a face once I’ve seen it.”
“Kieren,” Kieren told him. “That’s the name that goes with the face.”
“D’ya have a father, Kieren? One that gave you a last name? Or is the celebrity act permanent?”
Kieren grinned. “If I’ve got one, I’m not sharing it with you.”
Rhydder gave an equally smooth smile in return. Stalemate. He looked back at Brenden. “So what does the fine and mighty Chronometric Conservation Agency want with me?”
“We don’t want you at all, human. We want you in vampire form. Where are you, right now?” Brenden demanded.
Rhydder’s face closed over. His expression shut down. “Get the fuck out of my house, Christos.”
Brenden didn’t move. Nor did anyone else.
“We’ve come a long way to talk to you,” Brenden told him. “But I’m not discussing agency business with someone from the future. It’ll fuck up god knows what timelines and I’m dealing with too many crises already. Don’t add to my woes, Rhydder. Tell me where the fuck your contemporary self is. I’ll speak to him.”
Rhydder scowled. He lifted his hand and pointed toward the battered door. “There’s the exit. Sorry you had such a long trip. Now, fuck off. I don’t want to see your face for another seventy years.”
Ryan, who had been leaning against the wall, straightened up with a jerk and grabbed at the cane that was resting against his hip. “Jesus Christ, Mary Mother of Saints…” he breathed. He worked his way across the room, studying Rhydder.
Rhydder scowled back. “You can have your epiphany outside, where you won’t get it all over the furniture,” he told Ryan.
“How far back did you jump?” Ryan demanded. “How many minutes?”
Brenden snapped his head around to look at Rhydder, his mouth opening. “Minutes,” he breathed. “You stupid son of a whore, how long have you been timing it? How long have you lived two minutes into your past?”
For the first time Rhydder showed something other than belligerence. His dark brown eyes revealed just for a moment a deep tiredness. He shifted on the sofa, ostensibly looking for somewhere more comfortable to sit, and when he raised his eyes to meet Brenden’s there was no emotion left in his expression. “I’ve already pointed to the door. Try using it.”
“You don’t want to hear my offer?” Brenden asked.
Rhydder held up his hand, his forefinger and thumb a fraction of an inch apart. “I had this much interest in the first place. You’ve killed that interest stone dead. You could offer me the wealth of Demetrios…no, you could give me Demetrios itself, and I’d just shove it up your ass.” He considered Brenden for a minute. “With my boot,” he added.
“We could help,” Ryan said quietly. “Whatever it is. The Agency has seen and heard nearly everything a vampire can do to himself and we’ve got very good at it.”
Rhydder’s jaw rippled as he stared at Ryan. He stayed silent for another dozen heartbeats. “I like it here just fine,” he said, his voice flat with controlled anger.
It was Brenden’s turn to study the man on the sofa. “You might like it just fine, but this life you’ve invented isn’t doing you any good at all. I’m not a physician, but I’ve seen the signs too many times to miss them. You’ve been in the past too long. You’ve been going forward to recover, so you’re avoiding the early symptoms of Stasis Poisoning. But the more often you jump into your past without a full recovery in between, the shorter the time before Stasis kicks in. It’s going to catch up with you, Cade. When it does, it’s going to slam you into the ground like a cartload of bricks and before you can draw breath, your body is going to dry out and crumble into dust.”
Rhydder stared steadily back at Brenden. His expression didn’t alter.
“He knows,” Kieren said.
Rhydder’s gaze flickered toward him, then back to Brenden.
Brenden got to his feet. “I’m not sticking around to watch that happen to you,” he told him. “I’ve seen it before and I won’t witness the end of one more great life, because you’re too stupid to get out of your own way.” He turned to look at everyone else in the room. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, like the man suggested.”
Ryan didn’t hesitate. “Good idea,” he said, and made his way to the door.
Kieren and Cáel followed the pair silently.
“Finally!” Rhydder cried after them. “You’ve learned how to listen to someone other than your own parade ground baritone, you lumbering great bloody giant!”
Kieren shut the door behind him, leaving Rhydder alone.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Liping Village, East Yunnan Province, China, 2054 A.D.: Deonne would never have predicted that she might ever enjoy her time in Liping, but five days after Justin’s return, as she was locking up the compound after a half-day of work, she caught herself humming.
She stopped the soft sound and paused in the process of locking the gate with the big old-fashioned key, marveling.
“You are finished for the day, then?” Adán said, straightening up from what must have been a slouch against the dun colored wall, two meters beyond the gate.
Deonne was still silently laughing at herself, so she found it easy to smile at Adán. “Yes, finished and more than ready to go home and relax.”
“That is a very good idea indeed,” he agreed, and held out his arm.
Deonne curled her fingers over his forearm, feeling the coolness of vampire flesh beneath her fingertips. It wasn’t a chill. Vampires were not completely cold as many of the basher nets liked to report. They simply ran cooler than humans, who self-generated heat via their metabolisms and all the functions that were continually at work maintaining their bodies.
Vampires were essentially inert humans. Blood was constantly needed to keep what passed as their metabolism moving sluggishly along. Or at least, that was what Deonne had begun to understand from the few hints and comments Justin had ever provided.
“Thank you for seeing me home,” she told Adán. “Although I formally protest once more that I can walk back to the apartment without danger. This is Liping.”
He patted her fingers and moved them so her hand was more firmly tucked under his arm. “Liping is a village that will be attacked by terrorists somewhere in the near future. We think. Neither Justin nor I will chance you being on your own when that happens.”
She gave up the argument and instead lifted her chin to the sun and let it warm her face, as it peeped between dark, gathering storm clouds. Thunderheads roiled in the distance. It was probably the last thunderstorm they would have for the summer was waning. Soon, leaves would begin to turn. She would have been in Liping for nearly a year.
“The sun suits you,” Adán murmured. “You should be illuminated brightly as often as possible.”
Deonne found herself smiling at him once more. “Why is it that everything you say comes out sounding like poetry? Justin tries it and he goes red in the face and sounds like a fool.”
“That is because he does not speak from here.” Adán touched his chest. “When Justin tries too hard to woo, he forgets to be what he is and tries to be something else and it sounds all wrong.”
“You speak from experience, of course,” Deonne teased him.
Adán grinned, his dark countenance lighting up with good cheer and his eyes sparkling with humor. His very white teeth flashed briefly. “Do not tell him I told you this, but I think you and I
are the only ones who can speak from experience about Justin’s affections.”
Deonne sighed. “There have been others in his life. I know that for a fact.”
“You speak of Ryan, I would guess.”
“He told you?” Deonne asked, surprised. When Adán nodded, she felt a spurt of something that was very close to jealousy. “He has never spoken to me about his past. I had to find out from someone else.”
“You must not resent that he talks to me, my lovely one. I am his past. Any conversation we have begins there or ends there. We have a very big gap to fill in each other’s history.”
“While I don’t want to know about his past at all?” she asked.
“For you, he would like to pretend that he has no past to speak of. Justin wishes to be human for you. You know that, don’t you?”
Deonne’s heart squeezed. “No, I didn’t know. Not put like that. He hates that I want to become vampire, but he has never said…” She glanced at Adán once more. “Why would he want that?” she asked him, sure that he would have the answer. Adán had become her go-to resource for answers to any riddle that Justin presented her. Unlike Justin, he had no trouble talking about the past at all. The last five days had been a series of revelations for her. She had learned more about Justin from Adán than the sum total of what she had put together about Justin since meeting him.
Adán pushed his lips together, pursing them. It made him look like he was pouting. “Why would any man want to live a human life with a human?” he asked gently.
She had taken another few steps before his meaning became clear. “A human relationship,” she breathed. “Children, even.”
“A gift that only you among anyone Justin has ever cared about could possibly give him,” Adán concluded.
“Oh,” she whispered, feeling even worse.
“Of course, you are not a woman for keeping the campfire burning and the stewpot full,” Adán added.
Deonne drew in a breath. A sigh. “No, that’s not me at all,” she admitted.
“He knows that, too.” Adán gave one of his big shouts of laughter, that Deonne had quickly grown used to and had begun to like. He threw back his head and laughed properly, making his hair and eyes dance and the ring in his ear to swing just a little. “You have given Justin so many conflicts, just because you are who you are and you do not compromise on that. He loves you for it, but he is sorely tried, too.”
“We are an odd combination,” Deonne admitted. “Everyone always seems so surprised when they learn we are together.”
Adán gave another chuckle. “Much as he and I were not natural friends.”
“You were not friends?” Deonne asked, surprised.
“No one was a friend of Justin Edward Kelly when he was human. He was an angry man. He had many reasons to be angry. I know he has told you about his human life. There was much injustice done to him and he had good reason to be bitter. But he would keep those reasons next to his heart, so that he could brood over them, always.” Adán shrugged. “I did not know this about him when I made him. I only saw a man being hunted down like a dog and killed like one, too. I corrected the unfairness of the situation by making him and giving him a second chance.” He smiled. “It took many years before Justin learned to let go of the anger.”
Deonne recalled the glimpses she had seen of Justin’s white hot temper, the one he hid from nearly everyone. “There’s still traces of that anger in him,” she told Adán.
“His temper? Oh, he always had that. It was a gift from his father, I think. The Black Irish blood runs thick in Justin.”
Deonne let out a breath, feeling some of the tension and frustrations of the day blow out with her breath. She had grown to like these chats with Adán. “Is Justin at home?” she asked.
“Home and waiting for you.”
She could just spot the apartment building, ahead, through the thin fringe of trees that circled the building. It peeped out from behind the bigger complex that sat almost on the river bank. The stony path that led to their building branched off from the firmer, more permanent sidewalk that edged the stone worked river bank.
Adán brushed his fingertips over her hand, the one tucked under his arm. It drew her attention back to him. “I do not frighten you anymore, do I?”
Deonne shook her head. “No, Adán. Not anymore.”
“Do you trust me?”
“A Spanish Romani?” She smiled. “It was you who told me your primary function as a child was to steal anything that wasn’t tied down and your career of petty larceny stepped up as you grew older, until you were caught and drafted into the Spanish navy. None of that inspires trust in a girl, Adán.”
He was smiling. “You trust Justin. He was an outlaw in his time. That does not seem to bother you.”
“I didn’t know about his human life,” she pointed out. “Justin doesn’t share as easily as you.”
“I simply tell stories,” Adán replied. “As long as the stories entertain the listener, then it is immaterial if the story is about me, or Justin, or you.”
“You’ve been talking about me to other people?” She halted.
Adán turned to face her. “I have been talking to Justin. There is no one else I care to tell stories to, here, besides you.”
“Why did you come here, Adán? I mean, why did you come to Liping at all? You seem to be the sort of man who likes people around him. The more, the better. Contemplating your navel doesn’t suit you.”
The humor in his expression faded. “I grew tired of it all,” he said flatly. “Finally, after more than five hundred years of watching the world improve itself and humans developing into the most amazing species, I’d had enough of the details, the pettiness, and the constant focus on the individual.” He looked around, as if he were looking for hidden listeners. “I wanted it all to end. Just for a while. Then the g-train opened up western China and they began forming these villages…I thought, perhaps, sometime in seclusion might give me back the spirit I had lost.”
“Then it is pure coincidence that you came here?”
“There was an apartment lease that went up for sale, quite suddenly. Finding an apartment in the western provinces is impossible, these days. There’s a five year waiting list. But this lease appeared as available, and I just happened to be on the net when it showed up. I bid on it immediately, but as it was, there were fifty-five bids submitted before mine.” He grinned. “I have more financial muscle than them, so I won.”
“I had no idea wanting to live in China was so…popular,” Deonne breathed.
“Then you did not arrange your lease?”
“The Agency did.” She thought it through. “If there really is a five year waiting list, I’m going to guess they went back in time further than this year – far enough back to get the leases they wanted, for this year. They’re good at sorting that type of thing out.”
“The Agency…” Adán picked up her hand. “I think this Agency of yours is the reason you and Justin think the way you do. You do not think about yourselves.”
“Yes, I do,” Deonne replied. “I think about myself all the time and I’ve done even more of it in the last few days than I ever would have thought possible.”
“But always in the context of a higher frame of reference,” Adán told her. “You think about your life in relationship to the rest of the world and time itself. Most humans see the world from ground level. Justin used to, but the Agency has changed him. You, also. You both see the world from an eagle’s perspective. No, perhaps even higher than that. You are both whole-world thinkers. I have never met anyone like you, but I am guessing the members of your Agency are all thinkers like you.”
“Quite possibly,” Deonne agreed. “I don’t recall any of them being petty. Not for long.”
“You like them,” Adán guessed.
“Yes, I do.”
“Is that why you want to become a vampire?”
She bit her lip. “That is…complicated,” she said slowly. “I d
idn’t know what vampires were truly like before I approached them about the contract. You have to work with them or live with them to really understand them because vampires are so closed-mouthed about themselves. Except you.”
Adán grinned. “Only for you, do I tell stories about my life. Only you would understand. Humans still think vampires are pretty, indolent night creatures only to be found on the net and in movies.” He picked up her hand. “It is yet another quality of yours that I find most irresistible, this knowing.”
There was a look in his eyes, one she had grown to recognize. “Adán,” she warned. “Let go of my hand.” But when she tried to slide her fingers from his, his grip tightened.
He looked at her with his chin down, his dark gaze steady beneath the thick brows. “I do not frighten you, but you are still wary. Tell me how I can take that away from you, that wariness. I would have you...like me.”
“I do like you,” Deonne told him honestly.
His jaw rippled. “Not enough to trust me,” he replied.
Her heart was thundering. “What is it you want, Adán?”
“I want you to love me as you are supposed to.”
“That’s what one possible future, a future that could well be some sort of dead end in time. Is loving you so important? Does collecting another heart service your ego so much you would hurt Justin to acquire it?”
His arm slid around her waist and pulled her against him, in a quick move that she barely could see. Vampire speed. It had been a while since a vampire had used their enhanced abilities against her, and the last one to do it had been Justin...for the very best of reasons. The reminder made her already thudding heart lurch in a way that made her feel weak and dizzy. “Adán,” she whispered.
Just push him away. Do it! she railed at herself.
But she couldn’t. Confusing feelings were washing through her in waves, making her pause. Making her hesitate.
Adán was watching her face, absorbing everything she gave away with every tiny breath and movement.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered.
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