Tempting Fate (The Immortal Descendants)

by April White

  “Mine?”

  I looked into his eyes. “If we don’t go back, he’ll never get Ringo.”

  “But he’s not after Ringo.”

  I closed my eyes against the truth of Archer’s words. “I know. But why is it our problem to solve?”

  He kissed my closed eyelids. “Believe me, if I thought you actually meant that, I’d agree wholeheartedly.”

  I smiled ruefully. “It’s not who you are either. You don’t run away when something’s not right.”

  “Hmm, let’s see. Vampire with a conscience. Oh, the irony.”

  His hand absently played with long strands of my hair that had escaped the braid, so I sat up and quickly unbound it. He smiled when I moved back in for more grooming, and his fingers worked through the knots in the most luxurious way. If I could have purred, I would have.

  “It seems you must be part feline after all.” Doran’s voice drawled from the darkness near the painting of the London Bridge. Archer must have heard him arrive, but I jumped a mile.

  I realized in an instant that Archer and Doran had never met, because Archer’s body was coiled and wary in a way that’s actually really dangerous for the other person. Doran was either clueless or didn’t care, because he stepped into the ring of lamplight around the desk with an easy smile.

  “You wanted me?”

  Archer tensed more than I thought possible given his already coiled stance. To me, Doran’s arrogance was just annoying. But then again, stupidly handsome usually went hand-in-hand with arrogant in a way that wasn’t usually charming. Adam was the exception to that rule.

  “Teach me how to travel out of default range.”

  “Getting tired of the Victorians?” Doran’s eyes never flicked to Archer. Not once. I wasn’t sure if I actually heard Archer growl, but I could feel it, and the hair on my skin stood on end.

  This pissing contest wasn’t going to end well.

  “Doran, I believe you know who Archer is. Archer, this is my distant cousin…ish, and occasional teacher, Doran.”

  “Oh, we’re much more distant than cousins. And practically the last Clockers left if you believe the rumors.” Finally, Doran’s eyes landed on Archer. “You’ve held up well, Sucker. A lot of you lose your humanity. Too much time among the riff-raff and you start to hate them.”

  Archer was wound more tightly than I’d ever seen him before, and I wondered why he let Doran push his buttons. Or, for that matter, why Doran was doing it. I was just about to redirect the obvious disaster that was this conversation when Archer answered.

  “Since I began as human, I remain one. There’s no mystery there. You, on the other hand …” There was nothing but pleasantness in Archer’s tone, and Doran’s mouth curled up in a tiny smile before he looked down at the desk still laid out with food.

  “I’m starving. May I?” Doran reached for a slice of cheese with a questioning glance at me. I nodded and he popped it in his mouth. Somehow, the tension that was boiling between the two men was down to a simmer, and I let myself breathe again.

  “Doran, where do you live when you’re not dropping by to chat?”

  He tore himself a piece of bread and looked at me with a smile. “I have a little place on an island in the Adriatic. But a better question might be when.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t live in this time?”

  He grinned at me. “I like how you called it a default range. It’s sort of how you live, by default, because you don’t know anything else.”

  He wasn’t going to distract me from his non-answer. “This is my native time. What’s yours?”

  “Is it? I think default suits it better.” He popped the last bite of his bread in his mouth and perched on the edge of the desk. “So, the same thing applies to travel. It’s all in your mind, and the default range is just the place you don’t have to think about.” Oddly, Doran included Archer in his gaze. Considering how rude he’d been to him before, it almost fascinated me more than what he was saying. Almost.

  “Saira, you’ve been Clocking place-to-place, right?” His gaze was back to me and I nodded. “So that visualization is the same principal used in out-of-range clocking. The tricky thing is getting a precise picture in your head.”

  “But it’s not always a picture for me. At least it wasn’t when I got us to Epping Wood when Archer and my mom were hurt.”

  He cocked his head at me. “Your mother painted that cottage in Epping, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You needed safety and comfort. Your subconscious chose Epping even if you weren’t aware you were doing it.”

  “Then how could my mom clock forward when she was pregnant with me? She’d never been to the future. She didn’t know what it looked like.”

  Doran shook his head like he couldn’t be bothered. “Claire needs the necklace to focus, you don’t.”

  “I don’t?”

  The man sighed as if I was exasperating him. “I wouldn’t be here to explain things if you did.”

  “Because you’re doing such a good job of it.” I muttered it, but they both heard it. Archer smirked, and Doran burst out laughing.

  “Okay, in simpler terms. Like the place-to-place Clocking, you need to fix an image in your mind. But you also have to fix a specific time. Photos are only good for the last hundred years, more or less, so paintings will be your best guideposts. Imagination works too, but I wouldn’t try it for cities. It’s hard to imagine how chaotic some things really were at certain times. It’s how a lot of us lose ourselves between.”

  “Between? That … vomitous nothingness has a name?” I couldn’t keep the shudder out of my voice.

  Doran shrugged. “It’s between time and place, so yes. But too long between and you know you’ve got a problem.”

  I stared at him in growing horror. “Does the time between get longer the further I Clock?”

  Doran shrugged. “Everything’s relative between. Just make sure your picture’s solid and you’ll be fine.”

  “So, if I want to go back to 1554 I have to find a painting that accurately depicts a certain scene? Because if it’s not accurate enough and I picture it wrong in my head, I could get lost in time?”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “That’s about right.”

  “Oh. My. God! No wonder there are no Clockers left!”

  Doran smiled at my outburst. “It’s not as bad as that. They just weren’t strong enough. As I said, it’s a combination of visual and mental. You have the mental; find the visual.” He grabbed an apple from the desk and took a bite as he jumped off and strolled back to the painting.

  “Nice message, by the way. I liked the orange.”

  I opened my mouth to say something - ask another question, yell at him, cry, whatever I could do to make him not disappear - but I was too late. Doran was gone.

  “I hate him!” I couldn’t help it. I did yell.

  Archer moved to my side and wrapped me in his arms. I was shaking with fury. “The guy is an asshole. He has everything I need wrapped up in his little pea brain, and he doles it out in the tiniest bites like I can’t process any more than the morsel he gives me. And none of it ever makes any sense!”

  “I agree he’s an ass, but he did make sense.”

  “There’s no reason I should be able to do what other Clockers can’t. What my mom can’t!”

  “Saira, we know you’re different from other Clockers, even if it’s just by nature of your mixed parentage.”

  “That should make me a weak Clocker because I’m only half, not one who’s able to Clock off the default range just because I say so.”

  “Right. That.” He sighed and held me at arm’s length to face him. “It makes me crazy that you can apparently do something so … imprecise. Something that relies so completely on whatever image you focus on in your head. It’s probably a function of your artistic skills, but also something more, and it’s like pure fantasy to me.“

  I scoffed. “That anything could seem like fantasy to yo
u is awesome. It implies that things like vampires and time travelers and shape-shifters are just normal, everyday things, and not remarkable in any way.”

  “You are remarkable. Everything about you is so far outside ‘normal’ it takes my breath away.” Archer’s gaze held me as effectively as his hands did. And my insides fluttered a little in anticipation of his kiss. Did that ever get old? The anticipation? And then he did, and I felt it all the way to my toes. Made me all breathless and wobbly.

  “My point is, as much as I may dislike the guy, I think I trust what he says. Doran says you can travel anywhere you need to go as long as you have a strong image in your head. So we just need to find you an image of London in March, 1554 to take us there.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause that’s easy.”

  He laughed at the irony in my voice. “Actually, there might be something hanging in Lambeth Palace from that era. Or the Antiquities Society. I think there’s a painting of Queen Mary that might have some background scenery.”

  Inspiration hit. “Or the attics of St. Brigid’s.” He stared at me and I grinned back. “You mean all this time you’ve been living in the cellar you’ve never explored the attics?”

  “It never occurred to me.”

  “Me neither. But Olivia took us on a little free-climbing tour the other day, and they’re like this repository for all the personal stuff that got stored or left behind.”

  My eyes narrowed as I pictured a room in my head. I snorted. “Doran’s an ass.”

  “I think we’ve already established that.”

  “No. I mean, yes, we did, but he painted the scene I need and he didn’t say ‘go up to the attics and find my landscape of St. Brigid’s.’ No, he just smiles his stupid little panty-melting smile and disappears.”

  “Panty-melting?”

  “Yeah. Good thing mine are cast iron.”

  “Right. Good thing.” I loved Archer’s droll tone. “So, to the attics then?”

  I shook my head. “Huh uh. It’s too dangerous in the dark, and there’s no way in from inside without the keys. Ringo and I can go in the morning.”

  He led me back to the sofa and pulled me down across his lap. “You know one of the things I miss the most? Daylight. Doing things people do in the daytime.”

  “You mean things like climbing around on rooftops?”

  He smiled at me and smoothed the hair back from my face. “Anything with you, but yes, climbing around on rooftops was more fun during the day. The view was better.”

  I laughed. “You didn’t climb around on rooftops before.”

  He pretended hurt. “Of course I did. I was a boy once.”

  “Hmm. I wasn’t. What’s my excuse?”

  “An underdeveloped sense of self-preservation?”

  I smiled up at him sleepily. “That’s what I have you for.” My eyes were closing almost against my will, but before I fell into full oblivion I caught the look of surprise that flitted across his face, and then a tenderness that I’d never seen before as he gazed down at me.

  And my heart did a funny little dance in my chest as I drifted off to sleep.

  Discoveries

  Archer was gone when I woke up. I wasn’t too surprised by that; he was totally vulnerable during the day when he was out cold, and who knew the visitors we’d have to the tower? But I had to admit it stung a little.

  I used the bathroom down the hall to scrub the sleep from my face and teeth, and came back to find Ringo digging into the bread and cheese I’d pilfered from the kitchen. He looked up with a grin when I walked in.

  “What’re we doin’ today?”

  I smiled back at his tousled head and excited tone. “Roof climbing. You’ll need these.” I tossed him Connor’s clothes, and he was back a minute later looking almost like a modern teenager in jeans and a black sweater.

  “The trousers are strange, but I think they’ll take knocks better’n wool. And what’s ‘E=MC two?’” Ringo lifted his sweater and revealed Connor’s brainiac humor T-shirt underneath.

  “It’s E equals MC squared, and it’s Einstein’s theory about mass and energy and momentum. Connor could tell you. Here, I think these will fit.” I tossed him my old boots and he stared at them in his hands. “Sorry they’re old, but they still have good tread on them.”

  Ringo quickly put them on and laced them. He seemed to wiggle his toes inside and then stood up with a grin. “These are the best boots I’ve ever ‘ad on my feet.” He bounced up and down on. “I think I might just be able to fly in ‘em.”

  I laughed at his enthusiasm. “If you weren’t flying before then I’m really in trouble. Keep eating, you’re probably still growing.”

  Ringo took a massive bite of an apple, the kind boys can take, barely chew, and somehow not choke on, and nodded. “What else are ye goin’ t’show me?”

  There was a knock on the door and my eyebrows shot up. It was six a.m. Ringo indicated the wardrobe but I shook my head. The only people who knew I was here would understand.

  I opened the door a crack, then pulled it the rest of the way. Connor stood in the hall, looking just as tousled and sleepy as Ringo did. His eyes went past my shoulder as he stepped inside the tower room. I closed the door behind him and made introductions.

  “Connor, this is Ringo.” Connor’s eyebrows almost shot off his face. “Ringo, Connor.”

  Ringo stepped forward with a huge smile on his face and his hand outstretched to shake. “Connor the Wolf. These are your clothes? Thanks so much for the loan of ‘em.”

  Connor shook his hand tentatively, his shocked eyes never leaving Ringo’s face. “You’re here. I mean, how? Why?” Connor turned a helpless look to me and I laughed.

  “I don’t know about you guys, but I need coffee.”

  Ringo got a dreamy look on his face. “Ye have real coffee here? None o’ that chicory horror they pass as coffee?”

  Connor was still staring at Ringo. “You coming, Connor?” He nodded mutely and I shook my head, laughing. “You should take the stairs. We’re going by the roof.”

  “Why can’t I go by the roof too?”

  “You’re not awake and you’re a runner, not a climber.”

  Connor’s eyes narrowed at me and Ringo gave him a cuff on the shoulder. “We’ll race ye, ‘ow about that?”

  “To the kitchens?” Connor gave me the wolfiest grin I’ve ever seen on his face. “Go!” He bolted through the tower door and Ringo leapt for the wardrobe. I followed him up the stairs as he worked one of the windows open in the upper tower. We got out to the roof thirty seconds later, barely out of breath. The view was spectacular, but it was just a backdrop for the run.

  “Which chimney?”

  “That one.” I pointed to a chimney stack on the far side of the building. The fact that Connor had to take hallways and staircases was the only thing that gave us a fighting chance.

  Ringo skated down the pitched tiles as if he was on wheels, and since I’d never done that particular move, I let him lead. He went up and over a pitch, and I mapped his route in my head as I followed. Each slanted roof became a skate incline, and each pitch was a hurdle to leap. He only surprised me once, when he slid under a rail instead of vaulting it, and I just had enough time to keep my momentum and do the same.

  It was an exhilarating way to start the day.

  I moved into the lead on the fire escapes down the back of the building, but we dropped to the ground outside the kitchen door at the same moment. Ringo opened it and stepped back with a flourish so I could enter first, and about one second later, Connor ran breathless into the room. His face fell for an instant when he saw us, but then his expression changed to awe.

  “You have to take me up there with you.”

  “Anytime.” Ringo grinned from ear to ear and I knew how he felt. The breathless high I always got from free-running was like adrenaline mixed with laughter. Annie was the only one in the kitchen, and she stared at all three of us.

  “What’re ye three doin’ here so early, and w
ho are ye?” Annie was a little breathless too, but I thought it was from surprise.

  “My name’s Ringo, ma’am. I’m a friend o’ Saira an’ Connor, an’ I was ‘opin’ for a bit o’ yer coffee this mornin’.”

  Ringo was a natural mimic, and usually sounded like a cross between Archer and me whenever we’d spent time together. But his accent was thicker than I’d ever heard it, and I guessed he dropped the extra letters for Annie’s benefit, because her expression instantly softened into warmth. “O’course ye can. How do ye take it?”

  “Oh, black, ma’am, but only ‘cause I never ha’ cream an’ sugar.”

  Annie poured a huge cup of coffee for Ringo and added three sugar cubes and a big dollop of fresh cream. I poured my own black coffee, and Connor poured himself a mug of milk. Ringo’s eyes lit up charmingly as he accepted the mug from Annie.

  “I think I may ‘ave died an’ gone to ‘eaven, ma’am. Thank ye very kindly.”

  “It’s me pleasure, Ringo. Anytime.” She was beaming right back at him, and I realized I was in the presence of a master.

  “Annie, it would be really good if no one else knew Ringo was here. Especially the Mong… any of the Rothchilds’ friends.”

  She made a tsking sound. “None’ll hear it from me. I’ve nothing to say to those chits anyway.”

  “Thank you. And thanks for the coffee.”

  “No worries, Saira. Ye know where the pot is when ye want more.”

  The three of us went back outside, and between us and a combination of handing up mugs and climbing ladders with them, we made our way to the roof to watch the sun finish rising. Connor gulped his milk and looked over at Ringo seated on the other side of me.

  “When did you get here?”

  “To yer school, or to the twenty-first century? Actually, it’s last night to both.”

  “We went to London to try to steal Wilder’s genealogy from Seth Walters. I needed a thief’s help, so I asked Ringo.”

  “Did you get the book?”

  I nodded. “The Mongers are pissed.”

  Understanding dawned in Connor’s eyes. “Hence the roof run. You need to stay invisible for a bit.”