Kiss Across Seas

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “Like jumping,” Sydney said slowly. “It sometimes feel as if I’m being split—I’m sinking down inside myself, while I’m leaping with my mind to a place somewhere outside me.”

  “Yes, it’s exactly the same, except you won’t have someone with you who is pulling the jump in one direction. It’ll just be you and because you’re not focused on jumping to something, you’ll float above the time-plane.”

  “It sounds as though it is important to not think of a destination, then.”

  “Yes! Very!” Marit bit her lip. “I’ve never had to teach someone this before,” she confessed. “Uncle Alex found his own way there.”

  “You’re doing fine,” Sydney assured her. “I have to think outwardly and inwardly, but in a general way, without a destination in mind. Shall we try it?”

  Marit nodded, relief showing in her expression and she closed her eyes. She slumped where she sat.

  Sydney blinked. Marit had made the jump instantly.

  Her sagging posture warned Sydney. She got up and settled on the bricks next to the hassock and leaned over it. She rested her head on her folded arms and closed her eyes. The scent of summer washed over her.

  She had made several time jumps and knew the general principal of making the jump, although she had never tried it from a prone position. She took a breath and braced herself. Relaxing and accepting, while at the same time willing herself…

  She could feel the transition. It was a gentler sensation than any previous time jump. That could be because there was no direction to the jump.

  Sydney floated. It really was just like floating. She couldn’t look down and see herself and suspected she wasn’t there in any corporeal way. This was her mind and awareness only.

  Below her, she could feel it—time itself, spread out farther than she could comprehend, in all directions. It was everywhere.

  You’re here! Marit, her mental voice filled with delight.

  Something is making me want to leave. It was a desire, like a sudden need for chocolate or sugar when she was upset. A craving, a need to find somewhere to go.

  This is not a natural place for humans, Marit said. Feel the tugging behind you?

  Yes.

  Your body wants you to come back. You can ignore it and find another place that calls to you instead. Can you feel any others? Reach out and listen.

  Sydney understood that she wasn’t really reaching or listening. Language was inadequate to fully describe what it was she was doing. She listened with every pore of her body, which wasn’t there, either. And yes, somewhere ahead, there was…something.

  And there was a larger, stronger something behind her. Much farther behind her than where she had just come from. She could feel the pull as she would feel the pull of a magnet against another.

  That’s enough, Marit said sharply. Time to go back.

  Reluctance touched her. She wanted to turn and follow that silent call.

  No! Return with me. Marit’s voice was firm. Sydney could sense her fear.

  The fear made Sydney obey. She felt for the smaller, less powerful tug that was her body and her time.

  How do I go back?

  Decide you are going back.

  Sydney reached for the place with her mind. It was just like jumping, without the physical sensation of being slammed through time.

  She was sinking. Free-falling through sky that wasn’t sky.

  She blinked up at pale blue morning sky and realized she was on her back.

  “Sydney! Talk to me!” Rafe shook her, terror thick in his voice.

  “She’s fine, Uncle Rafe,” Marit said. She sounded tired. “Give her a moment.”

  “What were you thinking?” Taylor said.

  “She asked me to show her,” Marit said.

  “Don’t blame her,” Sydney said and was astonished at the weakness of her voice.

  Rafe picked her up, helping her sit. She turned her head to look at him. The movement sent jagged shards through her brain and she moaned and clutched at her head.

  “What? What is it?” Rafe asked.

  Sydney closed her eyes and waited for the pounding to pass. Each throb made her feel sick. She swallowed against the nausea. “Migraine,” she whispered. “Bad, bad, bad.” She was afraid to open her eyes again. Would even that much movement send the ghastly waves through her?

  “She needs to lie down,” Taylor said firmly.

  “Right.” Rafe slid his hands under her.

  “Carefully!” Taylor added. “Unless you don’t mind being vomited on.”

  Rafe hesitated. “Is there something we can give her?”

  “I’ll ask Veris, but first, we should get her out of the light and muffle any sound,” Taylor said. “My father used to get migraines. Lying perfectly still in a dark, quiet room is the first step.”

  Relief touched Sydney. She wouldn’t have to move or talk, to explain what she needed.

  Rafe picked her up with extra-slow movements to avoid jostling her and she loved him for his care.

  “I’ll prepare the room,” Marit said quietly.

  “Then pull Veris out of the surgery, please,” Taylor added.

  Rafe carried her through the house. Sydney didn’t open her eyes again, yet she could feel when they stepped inside. He laid her down on their bed. Carefully.

  “I’ve pulled the drapes, Aunt Sydney,” Marit said softly. “It’s safe to open your eyes.”

  Sydney eased them open a bit at a time. Marit stood at the end of the bed, chewing her bottom lip. Alannah was next to her, hugging her own middle with one arm and gnawing a fingernail, looking worried.

  “I’m fine,” Sydney told them both.

  Rafe leaned over her, his dark brows coming together. “You’re not fine at all,” he said shortly.

  “I’ll get Far,” Marit said. She spun on her heel and hurried from the room.

  Taylor came up behind Rafe and patted his arm. “Leave her to recover, Rafe. Once Veris gives her something, she’ll be back on her feet in a few hours.”

  “You don’t know that,” Rafe shot back.

  “I know that Marit does all the time what Sydney just tried to do. Marit is fine. Give her time, Rafe. Come on. Come.” She drew him from the room, leaving Sydney alone, except for Alannah.

  Sydney gathered her energy to speak. “Guess screwing with time isn’t such a great idea, huh?”

  Alannah let go of her fingernail. “You did it all wrong, that’s all.”

  Sydney felt too ill to be surprised. “I’m still learning.”

  “You don’t learn. You just know.”

  Sydney almost nodded. She held still, though. Yes, it was a matter of knowing. Just this short expedition had taught her that it was more instinctual than she had assumed. The skill was innate. Knowing what to do with it was the real learning curve.

  “How do I do it right, so I don’t end up like this every time?” Sydney asked. She didn’t consider it strange to consult with a twelve-year-old. The twins and Marit were very different from the average human.

  “You have to like doing it. You were too scared.”

  Sydney stared at her. Her head gave a short, warning throb and she tried to relax. “You were there, too, Alan?”

  Alannah held still. Then she shrugged. “Maybe.” She turned to go and paused as Veris came into the room, a giant shadow carrying a kidney dish. “She’s okay, Far,” she told him.

  “How about I induce a migraine in you and you find out how bad it really is?” Veris asked her.

  Alannah grinned. “No, thanks.”

  “Scram, darling one. Aunt Sydney needs quiet and you couldn’t be quiet to save your life.”

  “Scramming.” Alannah hurried away.

  Veris came over to the bed and rested the dish next to Sydney’s hip. “Planning on being the next Marit, Syd?” he asked. He picked up a syringe from the dish and held it up to check the contents and express the air.

  “Alan said I was doing it wrong, that I was too scared,” Sydn
ey said.

  “One, I don’t know what you were doing. I just got marching orders from Marit that you had a severe migraine and I had to do something about it. Two, if you were doing anything with Marit, then you were way, way inside your own mind and fear produces high levels of hormones that impact the amygdala and, among other things, screw with your memory.” He pinched her arm and slid the needle in with a practiced motion. Cold liquid spread through her arm. “Alan might be right. Fear very well could be fucking things up.”

  “No lectures about screwing with time?” Sydney whispered.

  “Will it stop you, if I lecture?”

  Sydney let out a breath. “We need to know how to do it. It could help.”

  “Then there’s no point in me protesting. You’ve already made up your mind. You’re an adult. Do what you want and take the consequences on the jaw.” He brushed her hair off her forehead with an astonishingly gentle touch. “Only, I would be pissed if you destroy yourself, Sydney. I like having you around. Taylor likes you, too. She doesn’t have many friends because Brody and I are too selfish to share. Do me a favor and don’t fuck with time, huh?”

  She swallowed. “I’ll be careful.”

  Veris let out a gusty sigh. “I think this stubbornness thing is infectious. All right. I’ve warned you. Sleep, Sydney. I’ll go calm down Alex and Rafe.”

  He left, a silent shadow in the dim room that suddenly wasn’t there. For such a big man, he moved with extraordinary quietness.

  Finally, she was alone. Sydney let sleep take her with pure gratitude.

  * * * * *

  Everyone but Sydney pushed into his surgery, to clump at the foot of the bed behind Alex, to avoid crowding him. Veris, as usual, stood right next to Alex. He was not one to take a back seat if he could help it. Yet Veris was always willing to defer to Alex’s treatment preferences, even though on paper, Veris was far more qualified. He was deferring to Alex today, too.

  The man they had pulled from the pool had been waking for a good twenty minutes now. Alex was not worried about his slow return to consciousness. The first few minutes after he woke would be the interesting ones.

  He studied the man’s face while he breathed slowly and deeply, stirring. He could pass as a native Spaniard, except he was unusually tall for one. He had the dark hair and olive skin common to the Iberian peninsula, too.

  Was that why he had jumped here? Had Granada been his home once?

  The man was cautious. Alex suspected he had already woken and was testing his surroundings with his other senses before opening his eyes.

  “As you can tell, you are no longer in the water,” Alex said.

  The man opened his eyes. Steel gray, rimmed with black. Very un-Spanish. His gaze flickered from one person to the next. Then it settled on Brody. “Gallagher.” His gaze came back to Veris. “Veris Gerhardsson?”

  “I go by that name, yes,” Veris said.

  The man let his head fall back and blew out a deep, deep breath. “Southern Spain?”

  “Granada,” Alex said. He moved past Veris and up alongside the man and leaned over to check his eyes. “Follow my finger with your eyes, please.” He watched the man’s eyes move easily. There was no abnormal redness or dilation. “Can you tell me who you are?”

  “Kristijan Zoric,” the man said. “I am very, very glad to be here.”

  The name meant nothing to Alex except to suggest Zoric was Eastern European. Alex glanced at Veris who shook his head. The name was equally meaningless to him. Brody was frowning. He gave a little shake of his head, too.

  “Where did you come from?” Veris asked Zoric.

  “I’m sure you’ve already figured out at least half that answer,” Zoric said. The corner of his mouth turned up. “I would have appeared out of nowhere, to you.”

  “We didn’t see you appear at all,” Alex said. “You arrived at the bottom of the twelve-foot end of our swimming pool.”

  “Alex pulled you out,” Veris said. “He can’t swim, so you have two reasons to thank him.”

  Zoric looked up at Alex. “Alex. You’re Alexander Karim?”

  It was unsettling to be named, when the person doing the naming was a complete stranger. “We surmised you have jumped back from the near future,” Alex said gruffly. “Why you did so is the answer everyone has crowded in the room to hear.”

  “Oh, I’m not from your future,” Zoric said.

  “No?” Alex said.

  “I’m from your past,” Zoric said. “Four years ago, actually. In my timeline you—all of you—are dead.”

  Chapter Four

  Sydney handed the man called Kristijan Zoric a cup of coffee and settled back in the corner of the sofa she preferred. Everyone else was staring at Zoric, while Brody peered at the laptop on his knees.

  Only Veris was standing, over by the big windows where the mountains were even more visible than in the pool room. His arms were crossed. Zoric was pushing his buttons, although he was biding his time.

  Alex and Brody had helped Zoric walk out to the big room twenty minutes ago and settle in one of the armchairs, while everyone else had gathered around, too shocked by his last statement to dream of going anywhere.

  “You have to understand,” Zoric said, after sipping the coffee, “I’m dead, too. In that timeline, I am.”

  “Drowned, yes?” Rafe said.

  Zoric nodded. The movement made his thick hair fall forward. There were slender shots of gray in a few places, yet his face was young and strong, the jawline firm. “I’m surprised I’m still here, actually. I didn’t have much hope it would work.” He spoke with a faint accent, further confirming his eastern origins.

  “Maybe you had better start from the beginning,” Veris said. “We’ll tell you when we don’t understand something.”

  “I’m quite sure you’ll understand all of it…but I suppose I should explain that, too. Four years ago, on your personal timelines, the Council firebombed Rafael De Leon’s house. You remember that, I know. Particularly you, Brody and Veris. You remember escaping the fire, then going back in time and rescuing the other three.”

  No one moved. No one seemed to breathe.

  Zoric gave a small shrug. “In my timeline, you didn’t escape that fire. None of you.”

  “A temporal junction point,” Sydney said softly.

  “In more ways than you understand, just yet,” Zoric told her. “Tira and Cyrus were ecstatic. Then the news broke that the lead singer of Nocturnal Rain had died from an arson attack, while Taylor had lived and so had his children…well, they were beside themselves because Taylor and her children had escaped their net.”

  “Wait,” Veris said sharply. “The Council set the fire. Tira and Cyrus are not on the Council, because we changed that when we went back to get Alex, Rafe and Sydney out. Or their time-jump changed it. We don’t even know where Cyrus is, anymore.”

  “In this timeline, Cyrus is not on the council. That’s why I jumped here,” Zoric said.

  “You jumped here?” Sydney said sharply.

  Zoric looked at her. “I did,” he said calmly, yet his long fingers clenched around the mug, making it look small the way anything in Veris’ big hands usually did.

  “You’re a jumper,” Marit breathed, sounding awed. “A man and a jumper.”

  Veris squeezed her shoulder and she closed her mouth.

  “Male jumpers are rare,” Zoric admitted. “It’s something about the zygote stage that makes it unusual. I’ve only met one other male jumper. Everyone else was female.”

  Everyone seemed to speak at once, voicing half a dozen different questions.

  Sydney got to her feet. “Wait!” she said loudly.

  When she had silence, she pointed at Veris. “Your question first,” she said firmly, as Veris would not stand waiting in line.

  Veris scowled. “You’re working with Tira and Cyrus?”

  Zoric sighed. “It wasn’t my choice. They found out I could jump…I don’t know how. It was simple enough—either I j
umped them where they wanted to go, or they would kill me. They made me take them to some very strange and some very old places. Los Angeles more than once. Then somewhere in England, I think.”

  “Saxon England,” Alex said. “Tenth Century.”

  “Was it? Cyrus directed that jump.” Zoric shrugged. “He kept me chained to the wall in his office, until the whole castle started burning around me. Then he made me jump him home. He spent a week researching something, then made me jump to some remote spot that was hotter than hell. Tira was there waiting and angrier than before. The two of them, when they got back to normal time, started talking about killing you all. Tira had her pet time jumper and didn’t need Taylor anymore. They were so pissed about whatever you did to them on that long jump. That’s when I knew I had to get out of there one way or another. Then I heard about the fire and the deaths. It was all in the papers and all over the Internet.” He took a deep breath, let it out, then drank his coffee.

  “How did you get out of there, then?” Brody asked.

  Zoric looked at him. “I didn’t,” he said simply.

  “They killed you,” Veris said. It wasn’t a question.

  “When Tira found out that Taylor had survived the fire, she ranted. I honestly thought she might have a stroke, except she’s vampire and can’t. But one could hope.” He grinned.

  So did Taylor. Tira was not her favorite person.

  “Tira decided that the best way to deal with all of you was to go back to when Taylor was a child and kill her. Then Taylor wouldn’t meet you, Veris, or Brody. Both of you would remain ignorant about time jumping, never get to have kids and oh, my, how your children stuck in her craw! If Taylor died as a child, all Tira’s problems would be solved.” Zoric grimaced.

  “You refused,” Taylor said softly.

  “And they killed him for it,” Brody finished.

  “The slow way,” Veris added. “I presume, so you could reflect upon your sins before you passed?”

  “Something like that,” Zoric said. “I held my breath as long as I could and tried to untie the rope around my ankles. It was pretty dark at that depth, so I was doing it by feel. I realized it wasn’t going to work, not in time. That was when I realized my wish to be anywhere that Tira wasn’t was something I could have, if I did it carefully.”