by April White
“The coppers are on the way!” Adam’s voice rang out, and I saw two figures leap over the back wall to join the fray.
Seth saw his opportunity and grabbed the broken wine bottle from my hand and spun it to face me with the jagged edge. “My book!”
Adam and Tom both lunged for Seth, but he stepped behind Ferret and they took him down instead. The sound of flesh hitting brick was horrible, and it was all I could do not to run to them. But I had a very jagged problem to deal with, and Seth’s tightly controlled fury was directed straight at me.
I felt, rather than saw, Archer’s attention shift toward Seth. The Monger must have sensed it too, because in an instant he was behind me with the glass bottle at my neck. Crap!
“Give me the book, Sucker.”
The death glare shooting out of Archer’s eyes would have rendered lesser mortals a pile of ashes. Unfortunately, Seth Walters was meaner than a rattlesnake and apparently wasn’t fazed by the lethalness of an angry Vampire.
“I don’t have it.”
Ringo had finally managed to kick Hamburger-Nose in the face, which did little to improve his looks, and was about to step forward when Adam lunged for Seth’s legs in a modified tackle.
Archer jumped forward to pull me away from the jagged edge of glass in the same instant as Seth went over with a roar of surprise. He twisted toward Adam as he fell, aiming the bottle right at Adam’s chest. Somehow Tom threw himself forward at that moment, causing the broken glass to miss Adam and gouge him instead.
To add to the chaos, sirens jolted the air around us. With a final growl of scary rage, Seth rolled off the tangle of boys and glared at me in Archer’s protective hold. “Your life just became worthless to you, little Clocker. It belongs to me now.”
And with that, he and his goons slithered back into the shadows and were gone.
Archer and I immediately rushed to Tom and pulled him up. Blood was gushing down his face and it looked like one eye was missing. I choked back a scream and realized that the blood came from a piece of glass that had broken off the end of the bottle and lodged itself just over his eye.
“Archer, you and Ringo have to go.” The sirens were right outside the building on the street, and I knew there was no way to explain a Vampire and a Victorian to the police.
Adam got to his feet. “The girls are in the car park. Take the book to my parents’ house. We’ll meet you there.”
Archer clutched Tom’s shoulder tightly. “You’ll be fine, Landers. It’s just a scratch.” Tom smiled feebly and tried to blink through the blood, failing miserably. Archer kissed me quickly, and he and Ringo leapt over the back wall just as the police flashlights rounded the corner.
Seers
It was full daylight by the time they finally let Tom out of the emergency clinic. Adam and I had been questioned for hours while they cleaned and stitched the cuts on Tom’s face, but we’d managed to whisper a simple story to each other in the back of the police car.
We’d been out free-running when we came over the back wall just as some thieves were trying to breaking into the building. We described Seth and his goons as accurately as we could without giving anything substantial away. In the end the police seemed satisfied that we’d been the victims of random violence, and let us go with a warning about our nighttime activities.
Tom’s wounds were a ‘greater-than’ symbol over his left eye. They covered the cut with a huge white bandage wrap, and he looked like a blast victim.
We were all exhausted, but Tom was grim-faced and silent on the ride to Adam’s family home. I tried to ask him about his pain, but he just turned toward the window as if no one had spoken. Adam at least got a look.
“Thanks for … you know.”
“Getting in the way? Yeah, no worries.” Tom’s voice was a weird, flat monotone, and Adam watched him for a long time after he turned back to the window. I reached over and squeezed Adam’s hand quickly before we pulled up in front of the most beautiful Georgian town house I’d ever seen.
A house I knew.
“This was Lord Devereux’s house!”
Adam was paying the driver and Tom had already gotten out of the taxi. I stared at the town house through the window with my jaw and eyes wide open. I’d only been there once, at night in 1888, but it was unmistakably the town house where Archer tried to lodge me when his rooms at King’s College were off-limits. The one his father had owned.
I don’t know if Adam heard me, and Tom didn’t seem to care, but the coincidence was too much. I couldn’t wait to talk to Archer, although if he was inside, he was out cold. Literally.
I unpeeled myself from the cab and climbed the steps to join Adam and Tom. A butler-type guy answered the door and nodded to each of us. Millicent Elian, the current head of the Elian family, had a driver named Jeeves, but this guy was so much more Jeeves than the real Jeeves that I would have handed him a calling card if I’d had one.
“Hey, Earnie. Is the fam upstairs?”
Earnie? “They’re in the drawing room, sir.” His monotone was of the ‘I’m just barely tolerating your insolence’ variety until he directed a question at Tom. “Can I get you anything, Mr. Landers?”
“No thank you, Earnest.” Tom’s monotone was much scarier because his voice sounded so … dead.
“Actually, could you have the extra bed in my room made up for Tom?” Adam caught Tom’s eyes. “Then you can duck out to sleep when they start in.” Adam’s voice was surprisingly gentle, and I heard the level of their friendship in it. Tom closed his eyes as if steeling himself, then nodded.
“Right away, sir.” Earnest wasn’t quite so annoyed anymore, and I thought he must know Tom pretty well. People who knew Adam either loved him or hated him, but even through Tom’s quiet reserve, he was a little shy, a little haunted, and always likeable. I hadn’t known him before he was sucked into the Monger crowd, but since then I’d always felt a little protective of him. I knew I wasn’t the only one.
Adam took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “She knows we’re here anyway; we might as well get it over with.” He was talking about his mother, Camille Arman, the head of the Seer family and one of the most intimidating women I’d ever met. She was barely five feet tall, and yet between her French spike heels, her French pixie haircut, her gorgeous French clothes, her impeccable French accent, and her stunning French style, she was positively terrifying.
So, naturally, when Adam opened the door to the drawing room, I blurted out, in the dumbest possible way that makes a person wonder at their own stupidity for years after, “Does Archer know you’re living in his house?” Yeah, painful.
Besides feeling like a totally uncouth Neanderthal in the face of the epitome of elegance that was Mrs. Arman, I’d even managed to make Adam stare with my rudeness. And that was saying something.
“Hello, Saira. Boys. Thomas, you need sleep. I’ve had the bed made up for you in Adam’s room.”
I looked at Adam quickly, hoping to get a grin or something comforting from him, but no. He was still staring at me like I was eight-legged and hairy. So I took a deep breath and turned to face the woman whose perfection made me quake.
Mrs. Arman had a signature boots and jeans look, like I did, but her look was nothing like mine. Adam and Ava’s stunning mother wore dark, perfectly tailored jeans that probably cost a rent payment on the Venice loft we used to live in, pointy-toed, spike-heeled, red-soled boots of a designer variety I could only covet from magazines, and a simple, perfectly fitted white silk shirt. And if that wasn’t enough, she was already three moves ahead of everyone, all the time, even her own remarkable family.
“To answer your question, Saira. Yes, I was aware of the house’s pedigree. In fact, your Mr. Devereux sold the house to my great-grandmother, personally. She knew his mother, you see. They were distant cousins, I believe.”
Of course they were. Archer was part Seer on his mother’s side, but she had died when he was born and he never knew her or, I thought, her family.
“This was the Sucker’s house?” Now it was my turn to stare at Adam. I couldn’t find any obvious anger in his tone, but I didn’t like the question, and neither, apparently did his mother.
“Adam, you will refrain from such inappropriate language, please. Mr. Devereux is our guest and will be spoken of courteously.”
“I’m sorry, mother. It’s a habit and I’ll break it. Did they all make it back okay?”
“Yes, darling. Your sister and Alexandra are asleep in Ava’s room, and Mr. Devereux is also resting.” I noticed she didn’t say where Archer was, and since Vampires are totally vulnerable during the day, that was a big deal.
“And Ringo?” I tried for polite, but I blurted again.
Mrs. Arman smiled, and it was the kind that lit up the whole block. No wonder she controlled the world and everyone in it, with an expression like that in her arsenal. “I left him in the game room with my husband.”
I stared at Adam. “Tell me you don’t have video games in your game room.”
He winced, and then burst out laughing.
“Oh, God. His head’s going to explode.” I couldn’t decide whether to freak out or bust up. Mrs. Arman decided it for me with her delighted grin.
“Quite likely, but they were both giggling like schoolboys when I left them.”
Laughter won. “You realize I’ll never be able to take him back to his own time.”
“Why? He can keep his mouth shut, can’t he?”
“He’s sixteen, Adam. Video games? Really?”
“Come on. We better rescue my dad.” Adam kissed his mother on the cheek before heading toward the door. “I’m going to catch a couple hours of sleep so I can be conscious when Archer gets up. I imagine we’re all going to need to talk.”
“Thank you, darling. It’s lovely to have you home, even if you do look like something the dog unearthed. Consider a bath first?”
He sighed tolerantly. “Yes, Mother.”
“Saira, darling. I’ve put you in the Green Room. Adam can show you the way.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Arman.” I followed Adam out of the drawing room, and he whistled when the door closed behind us.
“The Green Room’s the old master bedroom. You must be pretty important.”
“You have no idea.”
In the game room it was clear that nothing short of a panzer tank was going to tear Ringo and Mr. Arman away from the role playing game that looked like a high-tech, digital version of Dungeons and Dragons. Ringo’s eyes never left the screen, but he did engage his brain long enough to let me know Archer had the genealogy and everyone was fine.
When Adam dropped me off at the Green Room door we were both proper zombies. Adam brushed my hair absently with his lips, then stumbled off down the hall toward the family bedroom wing, and I went inside the room for ‘important’ guests.
The minute I was inside I wondered why Mrs. Arman had sent me there. The big, four-poster, heavily-carved wood bed looked like it had come with the house, and I understood perfectly why Archer was asleep on it. It would have been his room if he’d never sold the house. Except Mrs. Arman wasn’t the type of woman who allowed unmarried teenagers to share beds in her house. I mean, Alex was sleeping in Ava’s room, and Tom was in Adam’s. So why did I get to curl up next to Archer? Granted, the only thing on my mind at that moment was a shower and a coma, but I didn’t think Mrs. Arman had ever done an ill-considered thing in her life.
I was much too tired to process anything other than the hot water controls on the shower. There was a pair of pajamas that looked like they might be Ava’s hanging on the towel rack, and I gratefully left my filthy clothes on the bathroom floor as I crawled under the covers of the big bed and wrapped myself around Archer’s back. He didn’t stir at all, and about ten seconds after my head hit the pillow, neither did I.
The Genealogy
My hair was hanging in a wavy sheet over one shoulder, and I was wearing a midnight blue cloak over a matching long dress. The hood of the cloak hid my face from view, and I could just see the tips of my combat boots under the skirt.
Good to know I hadn’t completely gone to the dark side.
And yet, as my vision-avatar was being escorted down a long hall toward a heavy wooden door at the end, I had the feeling that maybe I had. There were two guards behind me, and I was following a black-robed man whose face I had yet to see.
But I knew him.
The way he moved, powerful and yet freakishly graceful, like he was gliding on rails, was the dead giveaway. If I hadn’t been so terrified, I might even have winced at my bad pun.
Dead indeed. The man leading me down the hall was Bishop Wilder.
We reached the wooden door, and one of the guards leapt forward to open it for us. The White Tower loomed into view outside the door just as Wilder turned to my vision-avatar and gave me a disconcertingly friendly smile. “After you, my Lady. I hope you’ll appreciate the lengths I’ve gone to for your comfort.”
“What. The. Hell.”
I must have said the words out loud because I could almost still hear my voice in the room when I sat bolt upright in bed. The big four-poster bed in the Green Room. With no creepy bishops in sight. I automatically looked down at my clothes and was absurdly happy about the blue Smurf P.J.s I had on. Then I spotted Archer. He was still lying in bed as if he was sleeping, but his eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. It almost seemed like an afterthought when he finally looked at me. And smiled.
“Cute pajamas.”
Really? He just saw my vision-avatar-booty waltz through a door with Wilder like a party guest, and the blue Smurfette winking at him from Ava’s tank top had all his attention? I mentally slapped him and then got over it when his voice shifted. “The long Elizabethan gown isn’t really your style, though.”
“Elizabethan? Wait, how do you know that?”
Archer pointed to a painting above the fireplace across the room. I gasped and got up to look closer.
The painting was of a young, beautiful woman, with long gold hair, wearing a crown on her head.
“Elizabeth Tudor on the day of her coronation.” Archer spoke matter-of-factly, as if it wasn’t insane to be looking at this portrait in a private home.
“Why do they have it?” My voice came out in an awed whisper, and Archer chuckled.
“It’s a copy of the original, painted at the same time, but specifically for the Seer Family. Camille’s great-grandmother was very proud of this portrait and hung it when she took ownership of the house.”
“Elizabeth was a Seer.”
“So it seems. And you’ll notice the style of the dress? Obviously this one is much more grand, but it’s from the same period.”
I looked closely at the dress and jewelry. It looked like most everything was gold except a bit of silver at her wrist. But Archer was right, the style of the dress was similar enough to the blue one I’d been wearing in his vision.
I turned back to him, looking through narrowed eyes. “You knew Elizabeth was a Seer when you had that vision of Ringo. Do you still deny it’s her?”
He sat up and sighed. “It’s getting harder to ignore the logic.”
“You just saw me there too. Why is it so hard to believe it was a true vision with Ringo?”
“I saw you, but as a separate person. I wasn’t looking out at the scene through your eyes. That’s the difference.” I rewound the memory and realized he was right. I’d been looking at myself in third-person. ‘Avatar’ hadn’t been wrong.
Archer ran his hands through his hair, making it all messy and adorable. “At least we got confirmation we’re going to the Tower.”
“We?”
“You, me, and Ringo at least.”
“How do you know you’re there?”
Archer looked as if it took every ounce of patience to stay calm. “The first and most obvious answer is that I go where you go no matter what. And since I clearly wasn’t born yet in the 16th century, there’s nothing to prevent m
e from being there.”
He had a point, so I bit back my automatic bristle-mode and waited for him to finish.
“Second, and perhaps equally obvious, is the fact that I’m the one having the visions. And since Seers don’t have visions of things that happened in the past, it can only mean it will happen in my future.”
My eyes went wide. “That’s actually really brilliant.”
He smiled wryly. I guessed it was sort of a backward compliment. I forged ahead to cover my blush. “I wonder if the Armans have ever thought that through?”
Archer raised an eyebrow. “If I were to guess, I’d say yes. Otherwise, why would we have been allowed to share this room last night? Camille Arman is almost as Victorian as I am in her ideas of acceptable unmarried behavior, so us sharing this vision must have been her motive.”
“Ah, excellent point. I wondered about that.”
He eyed my borrowed P.J.s again. “Lucky for you, I remain trustworthy.”
“Because the Smurfs are so sexy.”
“You have no idea.”
I popped out of bed and said brightly, “Well okay then. Time to get up and face the Armans.” I bolted for the bathroom and discovered my clothes, that I’d left strewn on the floor, had been cleaned and folded in a neat little pile on a chair. And as much as it creeped me out that someone dealt with my filthy clothes, I was very grateful to pull on something clean.
I thought about my reaction to Archer as I was getting dressed. I didn’t think I was a prude. Not really. But then again, having no experience at all with the physical aspects of a relationship beyond kissing also didn’t qualify me as particularly expert. In fact, if I was honest with myself, something usually best done in small doses, one of the few things I was actually expert at was running away. I sighed and twisted my hair into a quick braid, swished some toothpaste around in my mouth, and turned my back on the face I saw in the mirror.
Everyone had assembled in the drawing room, and what a fascinating group it was. Ringo was grinning from ear to ear as he described the flash-bangs he’d thrown at an evil mage in a role-playing video game. Archer and Adam were laughing at his enthusiasm, and Mr. Arman chuckled happily at the sight of so much animation. Alex sat with Adam, who held her hand easily. She didn’t look nearly as comfortable with the display of affection as Adam obviously was, and she kept darting her eyes to Mrs. Arman, who talked quietly with Ava in the corner. Tom was the last to come in, looking drawn, as if all the angles in his face had sharpened with lack of sleep. I caught his eye and patted the couch next to me, but he pretended not to notice and veered off to sit against the wall near the guys.