Venom & Vampires: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Casey Lane

  However, that does make me curious about something. I used Spero to feed the chronomichani. If Spero is still alive, what’s powering the device? Through my connection to it, I know the machine is almost fully charged.

  Now free of CCD assassins, I make plans to track down the dragon cultists. Based on Betty’s translation, I have a strong feeling the fanatics fled back to the year 542 CE. I intend to go back in time and kill them. Despite all these recent distractions, I must stay focused on my core mission.

  I’m not taking Kaplan along on this job. My squire, Snedeker, is the only one I trust. I’ve never revealed my time travel capability to anyone at KoR, but I’ll have to tell Snedeker if I want his help. I doubt the cultists are armed with any serious weapons. Two KoR men in full body armor, with grenades and automatic weapons, ought to be able to exterminate them.

  I find Snedeker at the shooting range. He may be a bit of an imbecile, but he’s always been a good shot. I take him aside where we have some privacy.

  “Snedeker, you and I are going back to Ethiopia on a top-secret mission.”

  He looks excited. “Just the two of us?”

  “Yes, Betty’s translation of the scrolls has revealed an important clue, and…”

  I trail off as I see Snedeker’s look of worry and confusion. “Colonel, when did you talk to Betty?”

  Across the range, I see a pair of CCD underlings approaching.

  I’m starting to get an unpleasant feeling.

  One of the underlings is Lieutenant Spero. It’s very strange seeing her alive and well.

  She salutes as she approaches. “Colonel Argyros, we need to ask you some questions about the disappearance of Betty Harrow, from Cultural Services.”

  Oh dear, another bit of bad luck.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ruby Mentor

  TYLER BUCK

  The sapphire gem in my dragon amulet lit up after my breakup with Ayana. And with the emerald gem already lit, it’s time to begin the last phase of my temple training with Fenfang, my Ruby Mentor. My inadvertent trip back in time was a scary experience, and got me busted by Specta Aeternal, so I’m looking forward to learning the proper way to time travel.

  The weird thing is, I still haven’t met Fenfang, and no one has offered to introduce me. I assume she’ll show up at some point. I hope it’s soon. I’m eager to finish training and get out of this temple. I’ve been spending way too much time underground.

  The other problem is the sudden lack of sex. Since I broke up with Ayana, she hasn’t been back to my room. I meant what I said about being friends with her, but she clearly doesn’t want that. My encounters with her in the hallways are awkward, no more than a polite exchange of nods.

  I’ve thought about finding another woman here. Several have made it clear they’d welcome my approach. But I’m afraid of getting mixed up with another woman like Ayana.

  Being underground and celibate for so long has soured my normally good mood. Each day I find it harder to come up with sarcastic quips. Am I losing my sense of humor? Am I becoming like one of the Hwedoists?

  A week passes, and one morning I wake up to find something odd outside my door, a single pink flower petal. As I walk out into the hall, I find a white petal from a different flower.

  I’m guessing that someone left a trail for me to follow. Is it Ayana? Does she want to get back together? No, this isn’t her style.

  Intrigued, I follow the petal trail. It leads me deeper and deeper underground, to a part of the temple I didn’t know existed.

  The temperature down here is warmer, like a spring day, and I smell something sweet in the air.

  I emerge into a large room blazing with light. In the center of the room there’s a floating globe almost as bright as the sun. It hurts to look at it. It has no wires or obvious means of suspension. It’s either magic, or a very advanced technology.

  Beneath the artificial sun is a stunning garden filled with flowers, most of them white, pink, or lavender. I don’t know anything about flowers, but these look like really fancy ones.

  A petite Chinese woman in her midforties approaches, carrying a steel watering can with a filtered spout.

  She studies me with her orange eyes. “Come, Tyler, your first lesson will be learning how to water my flowers. They’ll be your responsibility for the duration of your training.”

  She speaks English! What a relief. I won’t need Ayana to translate.

  “You’re Fenfang?”

  She nods.

  “Your English is excellent.”

  She smiles. “Flatterer! I was born in Hong Kong in the mid-twentieth century, so my first language is Cantonese. But I learned English because it’s the universal tongue of time travelers from that era. Long ago it was Latin, and then French. By the twenty-second century, it will be Standard Mandarin.”

  “You’ve been to the twenty-second century?”

  “I have, but don’t ask me for details.”

  She hands me the watering can.

  I spend the day learning more about peonies, chrysanthemums, and orchids than I ever thought possible. The orchids are particularly sensitive to mishandling. Maybe Fenfang is trying to draw some parallel between the orchids and my training. But I think it’s more likely she just wants help with the plants.

  During the second day of my gardening lessons, Fenfang seems more inclined to talk about time travel. She tells me that most dragons can’t jump through time, only those of the rainbow species. They used to be scattered across the world, but all are dead now, most slain by humans. No one knows exactly why these dragons developed the power of time travel, or what they used it for.

  I ask her about Specta Aeternal, and she’s not a big fan. While SA has mastered some advanced techniques, they’re more concerned about preserving the timeline than protecting the creations of Aido-Hwedo. Fenfang doesn’t believe the timeline is a sacred, living creature, only an element, like air or water.

  After lunch, Fenfang takes me to a different room, adjacent to her vast garden. This room is dimly lit by oil lamps and houses a series of open brass columns about three feet high. As I get closer, I see they have gearworks inside, and all of them are dripping water into collection devices.

  Fenfang uses the sleeve of her robe to wipe a smudge mark off one of the brass devices. “These are my water clocks. They are an important part of your training.”

  How in the hell will water clocks teach me to time travel?

  I notice something odd written on the wall in chalk. It’s the date I arrived here at the temple to begin training.

  Fenfang’s eyes follow mine. “It’s important to record when you arrived. When you leave, I will write your departure date beside it. Can you imagine why we do that?”

  I think it over. I don’t know the answer, but I decide to hazard a guess. “I need to know those dates, because if I come back here again during that time frame, there’s a risk of doubling.”

  Fenfang nods approvingly. “Very good, Tyler. Of course, you must make physical contact with another version of yourself in order to create a temporal anomaly. But doubling increases the chances of that happening. That’s why, eventually, you’ll carry a logbook of all your jumps. You must remain ever vigilant.”

  She draws me over to the brass water clocks and points to the clock dripping the fastest. “That one is counting seconds. The first water clocks were built in Babylon and Egypt, but these were patterned after a superior Greek design.”

  She carries a footstool over and places it before the clock counting seconds. “Have a seat, Tyler. Focus on the dripping water.”

  After a minute of staring at the water, I have to pee, but I decide not to say anything.

  Fenfang takes a seat beside me. I note that her chair is padded and has back support. The privileges of rank.

  She points at the clock with her tiny index finger. “In the beginning, we don’t actually teach time travel. First, you must learn to manipulate the clocks.”

  She leans
forward and turns a valve on the clock. “The water will now drip in increments of ten drops, separated by a ten-second period of quiet. Then another ten drops, and so on. Your task is to make the clock skip the ninth drop. It will release eight drops, you will then make it skip a drop, and then the last drop will fall, for a total of nine drops. Do you understand?”

  “Um, how exactly am I supposed to do that? I take it I’m not allowed to fiddle with the gears.”

  “No, you must use your mind to bend the clock to your will.”

  “You mean, like, telekinesis?”

  “Call it whatever you like. Just make the clock skip the ninth drop.”

  She starts working on an embroidery project, a red silk rose on a beige cloth.

  “So, I guess this is going to take a while?”

  She smiles encouragingly. “Just do your best. It may take a few weeks, possibly even months, but I am a patient woman.”

  Months! Shit, what have I gotten myself into? Is this what they mean by Chinese water torture? This stool is already making my ass hurt. There’s no way I can do this for months.

  She gestures for me to begin. I’m really not sure how to do this. Should I concentrate on controlling the gears inside? Weird that she’s making me skip the ninth drop. Why not the first drop, or the last drop?

  Despite my confusion and skepticism, I decide not to say anything. Nobody likes a whiny student.

  I watch the drops and begin counting. By the sixth drop, I still don’t have a plan. By the eighth drop I’m getting desperate. Just before the ninth drop, I imagine that the ninth drop has already fallen. In my head, I see the ninth drop fall, so this next drop will actually be the tenth and last drop.

  One drop falls, and then the flow stops.

  I look over at Fenfang and see blood spreading across her embroidery. Her face is rigid and her finger is bleeding.

  “Fenfang, are you okay?”

  She slowly nods.

  “I think I made the clock skip a drop. Or maybe I just miscounted.”

  She sets down her embroidery and sucks her finger.

  The clock begins to drip again. The sound of those drops is driving me crazy. How do I turn the stupid thing off?

  Four drops have fallen. I stare at the clock, visualizing the other six drops falling in rapid succession.

  The clock falls silent again. Somehow, I’ve just brought myself another ten seconds of peace.

  I notice Fenfang standing beside me. Weird, I didn’t see her get up from the chair.

  She puts her hands on my shoulder, her face flushed, her eyes intense. “Has Specta Aeternal tried to recruit you?”

  If I lie to her, she’ll know. “Yes. They want me to join their Time Academy.”

  Her voice is low, but hard. “When you’re done here, you should do that.”

  “Why? Because I can mess with the clock?”

  “Tyler, you weren’t just manipulating the clock, though that’s how we explain it to new students. You were actually manipulating time. And no one, to my knowledge, has ever succeeded on their first attempt. You jumped one second into the future, and then you jumped six seconds into the future. That is an astounding accomplishment for your first day of training. Aido-Hwedo’s blood is strong in you. Frighteningly strong.”

  I feel a warm wave of pride sweeping through me. I’ve never been good at anything, other than relic hunting, and I’ve never had anyone praise me like this. I know Mom loves me, but her praise over the years has been rare. She raised me to be tough.

  I find my eyes getting watery.

  Fenfang looks concerned. “Tyler, are you well?”

  I nod. “Just … allergic to the flowers, that’s all.”

  I take to time travel even better than to swimming. On the second day, Fenfang moves me up to the minute and hour clocks.

  As the jumps become longer, I notice a falling sensation, and an ache in my body afterward. Fenfang explains that this effect is much more pronounced outside the temple. Within Aido-Hwedo’s sanctuary, it’s possible for those with his blood to jump repeatedly without resting in between, and with far fewer physical effects.

  On the third day, Fenfang takes me outside the temple to jump. It’s now warm in the desert scrub, and I smell a hint of myrrh. Instead of watching the water clocks, Fenfang has me imagine them. In my mind I see them dripping, and I force them to skip a drop. The trick works. I jump forward in time, but outside the temple, the falling sensation is stronger, and I have to rest a day before I can do it again.

  After that field trip, we train exclusively in the temple so I can get more work done without resting in between. Fenfang gives me a logbook, and I start recording my jumps.

  Eventually, I’m able to jump without visualizing the falling drops. I just shorthand it, imagining six drops have already fallen and I jump forward six seconds. Fenfang calls this leaving the clocks. It normally takes a student a year or more to achieve this with forward jumps, and I’m doing it by the third week.

  Jumping into the past is trickier. There’s no way to do it safely, in small increments, without running into yourself and risking doubling. For my first jump, I have to go all the way back to before I first arrived here. This will be a tandem jump. Fenfang will do the actual jumping, taking me along with her so I can see what it feels like. She checks her own logbook and sees that she was absent from the temple during March of 539 CE, and that was long before I arrived, so it’s considered a safe target.

  When she takes my hand and jumps, I experience all of the familiar physical effects, but the jump has a different feel to it, almost like I’m running backward and can’t see where I’m going. It’s awkward, and not as much fun as jumping forward.

  The past version of Fenfang’s garden room is empty of flowers, and dimly lit by a pair of oil lamps. Fenfang takes us back to our current training date in 542 CE, and the room explodes with light and color as the garden returns.

  I haven’t yet learned how to take somebody with me when I jump, so Fenfang wants me to repeat the last jump, this time alone, and to go back an additional day to prevent doubling.

  I manage the jump with no problems and then return to a very relieved Fenfang. I’m still not sure how I judge how much time I’m jumping through. It’s kind of like jumping to a particular spot on the floor. You can do it, but it’s hard to explain how you did it.

  The first successful jump into the past is a training milestone, so Fenfang and the Hwedoists throw me a dinner party with some of my favorite dishes, including tibs and injera, doro wat, and plenty of tej.

  Afterward, when I return to my room all fat and buzzed, I find Ayana sitting at my desk. I can tell she’s nervous, though she hides it well.

  She smiles. “Congratulations on your first jump into the past. How did it feel?”

  Is she really here to chitchat about my day? She must be, because she isn’t dressed for sex.

  “It felt fine, Ayana. Why are you here?”

  “You said I could come. That we could talk and be friends.”

  “Friends talk about their lives. Are you really ready to talk about yours?”

  “Yes. But I can’t share temple business. I hope you understand.”

  I fall onto the bed and kick off my shoes.

  “I’m so full, that was a helluva dinner.”

  “Fenfang is telling anyone who will listen that you are the greatest dracoform we’ve ever produced.”

  Her comment angers me, and I quickly realize why. “Ayana, doesn’t it bother you that the dragon blood killed so many people before I came along? Doesn’t it bother you that it could have killed me? Essentially, you kidnapped and poisoned me. Don’t you have any remorse?”

  She pauses for several moments, looking down at her hands. “Are you pleased with the gifts you have received from Aido-Hwedo?”

  I nod. “I’m impressed with them, yes. But they were forced upon me without my consent.”

  She shakes her head. “No, Tyler. You gave your consent by coming here.
”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “You were summoned by Aido-Hwedo, and you answered the call.”

  “I wasn’t summoned, I chose this job. I was looking for dragon bones.”

  “Your communication with Aido-Hwedo was subconscious, soul to soul.”

  “Aido-Hwedo is dead. This is just the crap you use to justify your actions.”

  Anger twitches on her face as she jumps to her feet. “Such an ignorant man! His body is dead but his soul is eternal. Many of us, including myself, have been trained to sense this communication between souls.”

  “So, you’re a priestess? Aido-Hwedo talks to you?”

  “We have no priests or priestesses. Aido-Hwedo speaks to many of us. You must learn how to listen.”

  “How did you learn this? When did he speak to you? What did he say?”

  Ayana takes a step back, her face tightening. Then she lets out a long, slow breath. “How much time do you have?”

  Over the next several nights, Ayana tells me her story. Her family was poor, and as a young girl she was sold as a slave so they could eat. The man who purchased her was a Hwedoist, and he brought her here. She grew up under the mentorship of the former Speaker and received a temple education, including lessons in English.

  Her first contact with Aido-Hwedo was in her dreams, where he would appear but not speak. Eventually, he told her she would become his next Speaker. Over the years, he has spoken to her many more times, helping her deal with various problems around the temple, including how to handle me. It was Aido-Hwedo himself that advised Ayana not to follow me when I escaped the temple.

  As much as I appreciate Ayana opening up, I’m not convinced her dreams feature a long-dead dragon. Yes, there is sometimes wisdom in dreams, but I think it comes from our inner selves. We sleep on things to let our subconscious mull over a problem, and we have an answer in the morning.

  I’m careful not to express these doubts to Ayana. She’s finally talking about herself and I don’t want to discourage that. Also, we’ve managed to have several meaningful conversations that didn’t end in sex, a first for me. Is this what it’s like to have a female friend?