by Olsen, Lisa
“Because this is sort of a touchy subject. We just found each other, and I didn’t want to ruin our time left together with talking about me having to go back.”
Bishop’s mouth tasted of ash, and he swallowed to clear it, but it didn’t help. “This is about you returning to your time?”
“Yes. Well, sort of.”
“What does this sort of mean?” he frowned. “You are or you are not attempting to return to your time?”
“I’m supposed to, but I need advice from the witch to see if there’s anything I can to do stay here longer.”
Silence stretched between them while he digested this. “And you needed Clay because...”
“He’s the only one I’ve found so far that knows a witch. They’re... friends.”
“I’ll say,” Bridget said with a very unladylike snort. “You should’ve seen them when we first got here. I thought she was gonna try and take his tonsils out by suction alone.”
Bishop cared little whether Clay had a witch for a paramour, and dismissed what the human companion had to say, as he did with most of her outbursts. There was only one thought on his mind, and his voice betrayed the emotion behind the question. “And will this witch allow you to stay here?” With me?
“That’s what we want to find out.”
“Let us go speak with her then.” His gaze swept up to look at the windows overlooking the courtyard. Which one belonged to the witch?
Anja placed a slender hand on his chest. “No offense, but maybe you should wait down here? You’re kind of intense sometimes.”
“The better to get her to cooperate and tell us what we wish to know.”
“You never heard of catching more flies with honey than vinegar? I probably won’t be able to compel her, so we’ll need to be as nice as possible. Clay here’s the honeypot. He’s the only one we need. Maybe you should wait down here?”
Bishop drew himself up. “I have just as much to lose in this venture as you do. I shall attend, though I promise to let you direct the interrogation,” he conceded.
“It’s not an interrogation. We’re asking for help.”
His head tilted to one side as he studied her, puzzlement written all over his face. How efficient was that? But there was little sense in arguing the point. He would allow her to take the reins for the moment. “As you like it. But should she fail to cooperate, I will employ more direct matters.”
“Cool beans,” Anja muttered under her breath. At least, that’s what he thought she’d said, though it made little sense.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Never mind. Let’s get this show on the road.” She tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, giving him a winsome smile, so that he forgot to ask her what she meant by that. “And I forgive you for not trusting me.”
Heat stole up the side of his neck. “I do apologize for mistrusting you.”
“It’s okay, I’m used to it.”
That only served to deepen his frown. “You shouldn’t be.”
“It’s really okay, Bishop,” she insisted. “But one of these days you’re going to have to learn to accept the fact that I love you. You, you big dumbhead. Not anybody else, just you.”
He eased at that, any residual jealousy melting away in the warmth of that love. It still shocked him to no end to hear her professing her love for him so freely after such a short time. Did he care for her? Yes, Bishop could answer that without hesitation. But was it love? Was he even still capable of love? That was a question for another time, they had a witch to interrogate. Speak with, rather.
Instead of making promises he couldn’t keep, Bishop gathered her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her fingers. “I offer my humble apologies then, for any mistrust now or in the future. And I will follow your lead, bâobèi,” he said, as a peace offering.
Her answering smile was worth a thousand apologies. Had he really thought she’d looked the same way upon Clay? There was a light in her eyes that shone only for him, he was certain of it. In that instant, Bishop saw the beginnings of love, and he pulled her to him for a soul searing kiss. Lost to her embrace, he didn’t pull away until he heard her human clearing her throat with an exaggerated cough, and he shot her a quelling stare.
Anja gazed up at him, her eyes clouded with desire, lips rosy from his kiss, much the way she’d looked up at him in bed.
“Am I forgiven?” he asked, thumbs brushing along her jaw.
“I’ll say.” She blinked, shaking herself out of it with a cheeky grin. “Let’s go find us a witch.”
Clay led the way, still casting a nervous glance over his shoulder to where Bishop followed along behind. When they got to the room in question, he rapped three times, followed by a double knock, then three slow knocks.
“Is that supposed to be the secret knock?” Bridget cracked, and Anja was quick to shush her.
“Shh, she’ll hear you.”
The door opened, and a blonde woman in a simple, brown dress opened the door, one brow cocked higher than the other. “Everyone’s heard you, you’re loud enough, ain’t ya?” Her accent marked her as uneducated, but there was a wisdom in her eyes that belied her years.
“I’m sorry, Bertie. I had had no choice but to lead them here,” Clay started to say, but she laid a single finger to his lips.
“You always was too pretty by half,” she sighed. “I suppose it was too much to hope you’d have the brains God gave a goat. Course you had a choice, luv. You just chose them over me.”
“I’m sorry,” Anja began to speak. “We really didn’t give him any choice at all. But we mean you no harm. Can we please come in? We only want to speak with you.”
To Bishop’s surprise, the witch simply shrugged, walking away from the door. “Do as ya please, it ain’t my place.”
“It’s not?” Anja asked, stepping inside, and the rest of them crowded into the room, which had the impersonal qualities of an inn, no sign that she’d made it her home.
“Not likely I’d be inviting the lot of ya into my home, now is it?” Bertie pointed out.
Anja didn’t waste any time with polite conversation, going straight to the heart of the matter. “Do you know anything about time travel?”
“Don’t have time for faerie stories.”
“I’m talking about real time travel. As in going back in time.”
“Go on now, pull the other one,” Bertie scoffed.
“I’m serious.”
“She is,” Bishop added, doing a slow circuit of the room, looking out the window, before coming to rest near the door.
Anja continued, as if the witch didn’t look on, unconvinced. “So say there’s a spell to send someone back in time, and they’re supposed to return on a certain day. Are you familiar with that kind of a spell?”
Instead of cracking jokes, Bertie appeared to take the question seriously. “That’s far beyond my ken. I ain’t never even heard of it being done.”
“Well, we did it, and now we’re wondering...”
“You’re wondering,” Bridget interrupted, and Anja continued smoothly.
“I’m wondering... would it be the worst thing ever if I stayed here?”
“I’d go back home,” Bridget added, “’cause I’m not a fucking masochist.”
Bishop scowled. “Mind your language.”
“Bite me, Chachi,” the human retorted with a withering glance before turning back to Bertie. “Anja wants to know if she can stay while I go to satisfy the spell.”
Bertie chewed on her bottom lip, sinking down on the edge of the bed as she mulled it over. “Ya both came through time?”
“Yes.” Anja stepped through the components of the spell while Bertie asked close questions. By the time she was done explaining, the witch was already shaking her head.
“You’ve ripped a hole in time. ’Tis only a pinprick in the entirety of time, but it must be repaired or the fabric will tear, and who knows will come of it. That means ya must satisfy the original requirements of the spell.
”
“But the original requirements were supposed to be me alone going only two months back,” Anja pointed out.
“That’s as may be, but ya dare not stray now. Even if ya were to remain hereabouts, it wouldn’t last forever. What you’ve done is unnatural, and it will try to set itself to rights. Ya might not like the consequences if you avoid going back the proper way.”
Bishop didn’t like the sound of that. “Then there’s nothing else for it,” he said, lips pressing together into a grim line. Anja had to return to her time. Just thinking it filled him with dread. “Could I go with her?” he asked, the question popping out before it’d fully formed in his mind. Did he want to chance such a thing?
“No, you couldn’t because then you wouldn’t ever have saved me in the future,” Anja replied. “We never would’ve met, and we’d end up with even more kerfuffles.”
He stared at her blankly. “Ker...”
“I have to go back and you have to stay. Like you said, there’s nothing else for it,” she said, taking hold of his hand.
“She’s got the right of it,” Bertie confirmed.
“Can I give Anja some of my blood. For added strength?” Bishop asked, hoping in his own heart that it might somehow pull him along with her.
Bertie’s nose wrinkled as if she’d smelled something foul. “Best not to add that to the mix. You’ll want to duplicate the conditions as much as possible. That means you’re to feed from your companion, and then give her some of your blood as well,” she added to Anja.
“But you’ve never attempted a spell like this before. You might be wrong.” It seemed important for Bishop to ask.
“Ya don’t need a recipe to make stew, ya just have to know how the ingredients work together. Just because I ain’t never worked this kind of magic before, don’t mean I lack understanding of how it comes together,” Bertie retorted with a haughty toss of the head.
The conversation went on, Anja peppering her with inconsequential questions, but all Bishop could think of was the most important one. “When?”
Anja looked up at him, startled, as if she’d forgotten he was still there. “On the night of the full moon.”
“So soon.” There were things he wanted to say to her, but they all crowded in his throat and got stuck, emotion swelling so high it was hard to swallow around. Anja seemed to understand what he was trying to convey, and she took his hands in hers, her blue eyes shiny with unshed tears.
“I know,” she said softly.
The room got very quiet as they looked into each other’s eyes. And then the witch spoke. “Come on then, Archie. Let’s take a stroll, shall we?”
Archie? He’d told her his real name? Bishop tore his gaze away from Anja long enough to send a stern message. “I’ll see you back at the house, Clay. We’ll have words about this later.”
“Yes, I expect we will,” Clay sighed, opening the door.
“Oh wait...” Anja scurried to catch him. “You won’t say anything to anyone about how I compelled you, will you? Otherwise, I’ll have to compel you to forget it.”
“How’d ya manage that?” Bertie asked, gobsmacked.
“It’s just something I can do, but I’d rather it not get around,” Anja replied with a pleading look, and Bertie’s eyes narrowed.
“So you’re one of them. Drau...”
“Yes, but I’m trying to keep that on the down low. Ah, confidential,” Anja added quickly. Was there a word for a vampire who could compel other vampires?
“I’ll not speak of it, I give you my word,” Clay pledged, looking more to Bishop, probably trying to make amends, and Anja relaxed.
“Good, thank you. And thanks again, Bertie, for answering all of my questions.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be more of a help,” the witch nodded. “Feel free to keep the room, I won’t be using it for the rest of the night,” she added, stepping out into the hall.
“I’m gonna hitch a ride with them,” Bridget added, shuffling for the door. “You two look like you could use some alone time.”
“Thanks, Bridge,” Anja replied with a rueful tilt of the lips, resting her back against the door once it was shut and they were alone. “So... I guess I’m going back after all.”
Bishop sank onto the end of the bed, deflated. “It hardly seems fair. Just when I found you I’ve lost you.”
“But we’ll see each other again.”
“When, in two hundred years?” He shook his head, the enormity of that number sinking in for the first time since he’d accepted her story. How cruel of fate to dangle Anja before him like a shining lure, only to snatch her away the moment he caught her. “Two centuries... ”
Anja came to stand before him, reaching for his chin to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen. I thought I’d be going back two months and you’d already know me and...”
“I’m not sorry,” Bishop said, and it was true. “How could I be? You’ve shown me a glimpse of a life beyond duty and order, a life worth living. For that I would gladly wait two hundred years or more. I only wish we had more time together before you must go.”
“I wish for that too,” she replied, fingers stroking through his hair, and he pulled her close, burying himself in her good, clean scent. Soon he’d have nothing left but his scant memories to sustain him. How would he bear it?
Chapter Twenty-Six
We stayed at the inn for most of the night. Not for sexytimes. Bishop just held me, the profound sadness in his eyes breaking my heart, despite his words about being happy to wait. There was nothing happy about waking each night alone, and I was grateful that my journey back would take only an instant.
I tried to distract him with talk about the future. It worked to some extent. He wanted to know what the next two hundred years would bring, so he’d be sure to be in the right place and time to find me again.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t give him many details other than he’d been in the Order, and pretty much ran the West for nearly a century, as I understood it. I knew he’d spent some time in New York in the seventies, and he’d known Mason since the eighties. I remembered he’d been at Vetis to help train Angel in the twenties, that was pretty much the limit of what he’d told me.
I wasn’t even sure when he’d come to San Francisco, but I told him about the buildings he owned, and his apartment. I thought about telling him all about where to find me, my parents’ house, the school, my apartment with Bridget – but what if he came to find me before I turned? What if he found me before Jakob did? It seemed like that would mess with my future too much. And as amazingly intimate as it sounded to have Bishop as my Sire instead, I needed to make sure certain things stayed the same, or maybe we wouldn’t even be together when I got back.
As much as it chafed to be left in the dark, Bishop seemed to understand why I didn’t tell him too much more. Instead I filled his head with talk about some of the other things to look forward to – like indoor plumbing, and the incandescent light bulb. I even tried to explain the internet, but I think it was hard for him to grasp the idea of computers to begin with.
Instead of staying there while we slept (where anyone might come in and discover two “corpses” in the bed), we rode back to the house, this time on horseback. It felt good to ride again, and it was much, much faster than a carriage, even if I did have to hike my dress up around my thighs to straddle the horse. From the way Bishop’s eyes blazed with heat as they raked over my bare legs, I knew he’d want to do more than hold me when we got back to the house.
We barely made it there when he lifted me from the saddle and didn’t let me go, his mouth crashing over mine the instant my body slid against his. My feet never touched the ground as he brought us inside and up to my suite. Bridget sat on one of the sofas in the sitting room, but I couldn’t so much as say hi to her, Bishop didn’t give me the option.
As slow and reverent as he’d begun the first time, he was just the opposite now, his movements driven by an urgency we both fel
t. There was so little time left, and Bishop did his level best to make the most of it. There were no words of love exchanged, but he proved what was in his heart twice before we collapsed in each others’ arms.
A furrow puckered his brow as the rising sun stole the strength from his limbs and he started to succumb. “I don’t want to leave you,” he murmured into my hair.
“I’ll be here when the sun goes down,” I promised. It was still a novel experience for Bishop to feel the drugging effects of daylight before I did. It reminded me a bit of my time with Rob, but with less of a difference between us.
“But for how long?”
“Shh, älskling, rest now.” I pressed a kiss over his heart, tucking my head against his shoulder. “I’m not leaving yet. I’ll be here.”
But for how long, his question echoed in my mind.
* * *
We spent the next week in each other’s pockets, and I enjoyed the way Bishop put me first. In the future, he’d always answered the Order’s call when it came. It didn’t mean he loved me less, but that sense of duty had him jumping until he’d had too much and quit. But that week he simply told Clay he wasn’t available. Maybe it was the lack of a cell phone or other instant communication that made it easier for him to leave work alone, but it made me feel like I was the center of his universe, and that made the idea of leaving bearable.
Not that we talked about it. We’d sort of agreed not to mention the fact that I was leaving on the night of the full moon again. Still, every once in a while I’d look over at Bishop and see him watching me as if trying to memorize the lines of my face. More than anything, I wished I had a picture to leave behind as a memento, but we were still years away from being able to go and get that done easy peasey.
When the sun set on the last day, I watched him sleep, hoping against hope that this wouldn’t be the last time we’d see each other again. “As fair art thou, my bonnie lad, so deep in love am I...” I sang to him softly, the words pouring out of me with the familiar tune. Until a soft knock at the door had me pulling on my wrapper to see who it was, leaving Bishop still dead to the world, and Bridget snoring on the sofa.