Romani Armada (Beloved Bloody Time)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Deonne pressed her lips together. “There’s not many women in this world who can say they have. These are different times, Adán.”

  Justin moved to stand next to him. “Are they?” he asked, seriously. “They may have the veneer of civilization and peace, but we are at war, whether we want to be or not. Don’t forget the reason you were hiding back in Liping.”

  Deonne sighed. “I guess that’s what comes from picking the good side. Everyone wants a piece of them.”

  Adán kissed her. “I will be as quick as I can, my beloved, but I must do this.”

  “Because the Agency has accepted you?” Deonne asked curiously.

  Adán’s expression shifted. “Because of that, too,” he agreed.

  “It’s Jack, isn’t it?” Justin asked Adán gently.

  Adán scowled. “No one should make war upon children in this way. No one should use children and their families like this. It is the way of the terrorist. It is offensive.”

  Deonne stared at him, surprised. She had known Justin felt strongly about family and children but Adán had been alone for so long… Yet he came from a race that valued family above all else.

  Justin rested his hand on Deonne’s shoulder. “I will go and see Danny safely off. You can’t be there, you understand?”

  She nodded. “Because I’m human,” she concluded.

  “Because you know too much about the inner workings of the agency and you’re one of Gabriel’s least favorite people right now,” Brenden said, speaking from across the room as he turned a handgun over and over in his hands, examining it minutely.

  Deonne sighed. “Be safe,” she told Adán.

  * * * * *

  Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2264 A.D.: Marley was washing her hands at the sterile station when Nayara found her. Nayara closed the door between the lab and the office behind her and leaned against the door. “You have finished the post mortem?”

  Marley nodded. “It’s not something I’ve had a lot of practice with. Autopsy techniques are a specialized art.”

  “Then you must be a gifted all-rounder, for you impressed both Fahmido and Christian. Fahmido was just in my office and told me what she thought of your work.”

  “I see.” Marley dried her hands using the quick cycle. “Well, thank you. I suppose Fahmido also gave you the results of the post mortem?”

  Fahmido and Nayara had interrupted the tail-end of Marley’s latest therapy session with Pritti, with a request that she help them with a cadaver they’d have delivered to her lab. Fahmido was a medical researcher, with no hands-on experience dealing with humans, so while Fahmido observed, Marley’s assistant had been another vampire called Christian, who had a charming southern accent and a deft hand with a scalpel. Marley had left the practical side of dissecting the body to him while she had run the genetic and microscopic tests. Christian’s skill had told Marley that he was a fellow practitioner, but she had already learned not to ask personal questions of vampires, so she had not been able to learn about his career.

  The body had been a woman and Marley’s DNA tests had proved that she was a psi-filer.

  “Fahmido told me the woman was a descendent of psi-filers,” Nayara said now. “The strain is weak.”

  “She had three human grandparents and the fourth was psi,” Marley told Nayara. “It would have given her some of the psi traits, but only a little.”

  “It was enough for her to consider herself a psi,” Nayara concluded, her expression grim.

  “You knew her,” Marley concluded. She frowned. “Where did the body come from?”

  “We knew of her,” Nayara corrected. “Last year, she posed as human and her weakened psi genes escaped our basic scans, so we took her back to ancient Rome as she had requested. She stole the time marker from her traveler and disappeared. We have been looking for her ever since. Clearly, Gabriel and his psi-filers chose her precisely because she would pass our scans.”

  “You found her too late,” Marley concluded. Then it occurred to her. “Unless…she was found alive?”

  Nayara shook her head. “We didn’t kill her. The body was dumped at our front gates, thirty minutes before I asked you to perform the autopsy. I didn’t tell you this because I wanted you to investigate with no preconceived notions.”

  Marley smiled. “I passed, then.”

  “You were not being tested,” Nayara assured her, “but even Christian praised your skill and knowledge, and he is very hard to impress.”

  “Is he? He didn’t say anything to me. He didn’t say much at all.”

  “Christian doesn’t, until he is comfortable.” Nayara smiled. “Then he’s difficult to shut up.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  Nayara glanced through the glass wall to the small office. “How is she doing?”

  Marley drew in a breath, controlling her reaction so she didn’t give away too much to Nayara. “Pritti?” she clarified, although she knew exactly who Nayara was referring to. She suspected that Nayara had come here just to ask this question. Everything else she had said had been pretext.

  “Are your treatments having any effect?” Nayara asked.

  Marley hesitated. Nayara wasn’t family, but she was fronting the organization that was paying the bills. It gave her an interest in the outcome of the treatment, but did it give her the right to privileged information?

  Nayara’s smile tilted the corners of her mouth as Marley’s silence drew out. “You have already broken so many laws to be standing where you are,” she pointed out. “So breaking one more by telling me about Pritti’s condition is barely a blip on the horizon in comparison.”

  “Laws are one thing,” Marley said slowly. “Ethics…that’s something else.”

  Nayara’s smile faded. “Then the news is not good.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Marley said quickly.

  “But had the news been good, then you would not be writhing over your ethical dilemma. You would have been more than happy to tell me that Pritti is improving.”

  Marley kept her mouth closed, but she was annoyed. Damn.

  Nayara threaded her fingers together. “How long?” she asked.

  “Longer than if she’d not had the treatment,” Marley replied.

  Nayara gave a gentle smile. “We would have lost Pritti days ago without your help. Your skills are not in question here, Marley. You must learn this about the Agency and my associates. We prefer to work with the best. In everything. Your coming here was not a random thing.”

  “So I am beginning to understand,” Marley said. “Although I thought, at first, that Demyan had approached me simply because I had a new geriatric therapy that would work for Pritti.”

  “That was why Demyan approached you,” Nayara agreed. “But Rhydder had to sell your skills and expertise to me before I agreed to help. He championed you heavily and my own research proved his claims. You are as good as Rhydder assured me you are.”

  Marley blinked. “Rhydder said that?”

  Nayara dismissed the question with a small wave of her fingers, but Marley knew she would have to think about this. Later.

  “So tell me, doctor,” Nayara said. “Is there a timeline you can give me? I need to know.”

  “Need to know?” Marley asked curiously.

  “The agency members will need to be…supported, when Pritti passes. There are many who do not truly value her work and underestimate the impact she has had on the agency. I need to brace them for that. Then there is Pritti’s psi talents. She does more for the agency and its members than she has ever admitted to. I know that she shields us mentally when she has the strength. I need to compensate for that, too.”

  “I see,” Marley said slowly. “I hadn’t realized that Pritti was a fully-fledged member of the agency.”

  “You thought she was just Demyan’s companion? “ Nayara gave a small smile. “It would be a natural presumption to make if you are new here.”

  Marley walked over t
o the office door and through as the door opened. She heard Nayara follow her and settled behind the desk as Nayara glided into the small room.

  “This area is soundproof,” Marley pointed out. “The lab is not.”

  “How long?” Nayara repeated softly.

  It took all Marley’s willpower to reply truthfully. “A day or two. No more.”

  Nayara nodded. “Thank you.” Her eyes were full of sadness.

  * * * * *

  Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2264 A.D.: “The green one, there,” Kieren said, pointing at a very average looking car. It was a perfectly normal, nondescript Toyo-Fiat sedan. There were millions like it in the air and on streets around the world. Kieren unlocked it as he hefted the carrysack in the other hand. The contents clinked in a flat, metallic way.

  Justin held Adán back with his hand on his arm, as Kieren and Rhydder lifted the doors up and climbed in.

  Adán turned to face him. He was wearing a borrowed coat over his shirt, now. It was a dark garment that swirled around his knees, just above the tops of his boots.

  “Be careful,” Justin told him. “I’ve been a target of psi mental manipulation. You don’t know it’s happening until it’s too late.”

  Adán gripped his other arm. “Rhydder and Kieren have prepared me well. I won’t leave the babe with these psi-filers for a moment longer than I can help.”

  “You’re human,” Justin said. “You have to remember that. It makes a difference.”

  Adán lifted his hand to the back of Justin’s neck. His thumb swept across the flesh of his throat. “I want to earn my place amongst these people. Your people.”

  Justin sighed. “As long as you come back.”

  “Deonne would never forgive me if I didn’t.” Adán hesitated, then tilted his head to study Justin carefully. “I love her as much as I have ever loved you.”

  “I know.”

  Adán shook his head. “You don’t. You won’t let the knowledge in. You didn’t, even when you were human. You think you don’t deserve it. You think you’re not good enough for her.”

  Justin swallowed. “I’m not.”

  “If I don’t return—”

  “Of course you will return,” Justin said sharply.

  Adán shook his neck. “If I do not return,” he repeated, “then you must take care of her. You must learn to accept that she loves you for what you are, not for the human you once were.”

  Justin dropped his head to look at the ground beneath them. “Okay,” he said heavily.

  Adán kissed his forehead and let him go.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czech Republic, 2264 A.D.: Adán looked around the square, which was filled with tourists. “She stood over there,” he said, pointing toward the gates of the National Museum at the top of the square. The square was really a very wide and short road, rather than an actual square. The street had been blocked to all but foot traffic many decades ago and the scene was a peaceful one.

  Rhydder glanced at Kieren. “Are you going to do your thing?”

  All three of them were dressed in perfectly normal and unpretentious human street clothing. They looked as much like tourists as it was possible for three men, two of them well over six foot tall, to look like amongst the families, groups and children roaming the square. It was the weapons they wore under their clothing that distinguished them as anything but human.

  Kieren frowned in reaction to Rhydder’s question. “My thing?” Of the three of them, Kieren seemed to have the least problems with passing as human. It was possible that he still thought of himself as one, even though, according to Brenden, he was something other than human now.

  Rhydder tapped his temple with his glove-encased finger in answer to Keiren’s question.

  Kieren snorted. “That’s what they’re calling it?” he asked. “My thing?”

  “They’re not calling it anything at all,” Rhydder replied. “You want me to call it your psi-file bullshit? Would that be better?”

  Kieren scowled. “I’m not—”

  “Psi. I know that. I’d know it even if you and every other member of the agency hadn’t made it quite clear.”

  “You know psi-filers?” Adán asked curiously.

  Rhydder shrugged, suddenly losing interest in the subject. “I live – lived – in the DRC.” He turned on his heel, looking around Wenceslas Square.

  “DRC” didn’t mean anything to Adán. But Rhydder wasn’t looking at him, so he glanced at Kieren.

  Keiren’s gaze slid toward Rhydder. “DRC. The greater metropolis of Detroit Rocktown Supercity.”

  “Sure. It was a city in my time,” Adán said. “’But they called it Detroit-Rockcity.”

  Kieren shook his head slightly. “It was probably a perfectly normal city in your time. After the Censure period, the city refused to initiate population control and residential screening. Criminals, people without IDs, and a huge number of homeless psi-filers ended up there. When the chaos was too overwhelming to contain, they walled the city in and control by any sort of authority shut down. Now it’s a bolt hole for every fringe human, lunatic and criminal.”

  “DRC,” Rhydder said, letting it roll off his tongue. “Diseased, Rejected and Cursed.”

  “And you lived there?” Adán asked.

  This time it was Kieren who changed the subject. “This is the location where we saw Irena Consuelo in the clip. Rhydder, this was your smart idea. Now what?”

  “You do your thing,” Rhydder repeated, with a grin.

  “What thing?” Kieren asked bluntly.

  “Scan for psi-filers in the area. You can do that, right? You had no problems digging around inside my head.”

  “Sure, in an empty room, with quiet and no distractions. You were drinking, which made it a lot easier. There’s thousands of people here.”

  Rhydder shrugged again. “Got a better suggestion?”

  “If Gabriel deliberately placed his lieutenant and baby Jack in a position where they would be caught by the nets,” Adán said, thinking it through as he spoke, “then he is expecting someone from the agency to hot-foot it to this location. He’ll be watching the area. I don’t think we have to do anything at all.”

  “We don’t,” Kieren said, his gaze fixed on a spot on the other side of the broad roadway. “Look.”

  They looked. Standing on the sidewalk, watching them with her hands at her sides, was Irena Consuelo. She was a small woman with black hair and eyes, wrapped in a thick dark coat. A bright, multi-colored shawl covered her shoulders and muffled her to the chin.

  “Hello,” Rhydder murmured. “Gabriel has made his move. Nice analysis, Romani.”

  “Thank you,” Adán replied. “Do we go to her?”

  “Let’s see what happens if we do,” Rhydder said. “Can you get inside her head, Kieren?”

  “She’s blocking me. Let’s try normal communication instead.”

  “Talking?” Rhydder grinned. “Knife is easier.”

  “Remember the baby,” Adán murmured and stepped over to the curb to wait for a break in traffic. The other two joined him and they moved across the north-bound lanes and stepped up onto the broad grassed area between the two roads.

  Consuela turned and headed south, along the wide footpath, sliding between pedestrians and tourists.

  “She’s leaving!” Rhydder warned. “We’ll lose her.”

  Consuela looked back at them, over her shoulder.

  “She wants us to follow her,” Adán surmised.

  They hurried across the southbound lanes and stepped up onto the sidewalk and turned to follow her. “This could be very interesting,” Kieren murmured. “What does Gabriel want?”

  “Nothing good,” Rhydder assured him. “But we play this out until we get a break and can grab the baby. And there’s—”

  “Always a break?” Kieren finished. “Don’t underestimate this creep, or what he can make his people do.”

  “H
urry,” Adán urged them. “She’s moving fast. We don’t want to lose her.”

  “We won’t,” Kieren assured him. “If we’re to follow her, we could stroll like it’s Sunday and she will stay within sight. Gabriel has us on a leash now. We’re playing his game and using his rules.” He grimaced. “If he has any rules,” he added.

  * * * * *

  Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2264 A.D.: “You seem…I don’t know. Bubbly?” Marley observed as she dropped the digital syringe into the tray resting on the table beside the treatment table.

  Pritti smiled. She was sitting, rather than lying on the table, her lower legs swinging gently back and forth like a child might do. “Today is a good day,” she told Marley. “I can see a long way.”

  “You’re not speaking of your eyes, are you?”

  Pritti smiled and shook her head. “The fog has gone,” she added.

  “I don’t confess to know by experience what you mean by that, but I think I understand and I’m glad.” Marley gave her a sideways look. “How far is ‘a long way’?”

  Pritti lifted one shoulder, her chin ducking against it. “Far,” she confessed. Her gaze seemed to lose its focus for a second. “Almost everywhere,” she added. Then she clutched the thin mattress. “Gabriel! He’s coming!”

  Marley touched her wrist. “Here?” she asked. “He’s coming here?” Her heart thudded. Even in only a few days, she had learned how much Gabriel and his army of psi talents were feared and loathed by agency members and had no reason to think they were lying about Gabriel’s misdeeds.

  Pritti shook her head. “No, far from here. Nayara! Come here!”

  Marley turned to check the door to the outer office, but the room was empty. Then she realized: Pritti had been calling to Nayara mentally and had vocalized her call.

  “Is she coming?” Marley asked.

  Pritti’s eyes focused on Marley once more. She nodded, her eyes enormous and her expression grave. “It might be too late,” she whispered.

  “I’m here,” Nayara said, from behind Marley, making her whirl to look at the tall woman as she stepped closer to the table. “Pritti, what is happening?”