Alim was silent for a long moment and Sydney was happy to leave him to his thoughts while she listened to the wind climb higher and higher. Sometimes it would slow, the high note dropping a little, then it would surge again, even higher. She marveled that the animals were not freaking out. It seemed that with their humans riding them, they were reassured. The rope would guide them, for they were stepping as blindly through the storm as the humans.
“I had not considered before that evil could grow like that. Now I see how it might work. A man who watches another man steal his neighbor’s horse and not be stopped or punished for it would think about stealing a horse for himself, for he has seen there are no consequences.”
“That is why murder is one of the Christians’ Ten Commandments,” Sydney added, thinking of Etienne’s small leather bible.
“It is?”
“The sixth commandment,” Sydney said, although she wasn’t absolutely certain it was. She would look it up in Etienne’s bible when she had a chance. “Thou shall not kill.”
“That is all of it?”
“That is the full commandment, yes.”
“That is an inadequate commandment,” he said, sounding amused. “The Quran also abhors killing. It says ‘…do not kill a soul that God has made sacrosanct, save lawfully.’ It is a much more useful commandment.”
“Why is that more useful?” Sydney asked.
“It gives more detail,” Alim replied gravely. “It speaks of those consecrated in the eyes of Allah. It gives warriors permission to fight their enemies and kill them.”
Sydney almost laughed. “Qualifications! Exceptions!” she shot back. “It is the same thing as saying ‘you shouldn’t do this, but if you really have to, then it is permissible to kill heathens’.”
“Yes! Exactly!”
“It is elevating Muslims above everyone else in the world and saying they’re better than everyone else and should be treated differently.”
“Well…yes,” Alim said. He sounded doubtful, though.
“And what about enemies that are Muslim?” she asked. “What about this…this Naravas, who your brother slew, the day you found me? Is it suddenly all right to kill him because he’s been declared an enemy?”
Alim was silent.
“What if everyone who believed in a god other than Allah thought the same way, that their kind was superior and everyone else could be killed without consequences?”
“Do not the Christians and the Jews believe exactly that?” Alim replied.
Sydney hesitated. In the twenty-first century, religious wars were fought because of that thinking. She was stepping onto very dangerous ground. Alim had to be made to see the value of Christian morals, though. The problem was, she had no faith herself. She could not argue that God was great when she didn’t believe in God.
She thought again of the differences in the commandments. The Christian one was simple and straightforward. There were no exclusions or qualifications.
A discussion based on values and ethics was a safer one. She shifted her focus. “Even in my world, Alim, those of different faiths go to war against each other, convinced theirs is the better god. It is pointless and tragic. The Christian God says ‘don’t kill’. He meant ‘don’t kill anyone.’ Christ did not put those who believe in him above anyone else. All life is equal in his eyes.”
“A slave is the same as a Caliph?” Alim sounded amused again.
“Exactly the same. Killing is killing, Alim, no matter if it is a girl-child or a woman, or a slave. It is still taking a life, one that is just as precious and valuable as yours.”
“Yet Christians still slaughter anyone who will not believe in Christ.” His tone was withering.
Sydney sighed. “It is a difficult subject,” she admitted, “and I am not Plato. He would explain it much better.”
“Plato, the Philosopher?” Alim said sharply. “You have read his work?”
“Not all of it,” Sydney admitted. “I do know he valued justice and truth. He thought that humans should strive to live a virtuous life.”
“Yes, indeed. He promotes the strength of families. A great man. A clear thinker.” His voice was alive with interest.
Sydney turned to look at him over her shoulder. She should have remembered this from the start—intellectual debate could hook Alex faster than any appeal to his emotions, which would just make him mentally squirm. “You have Plato in your library at…home?”
“Also Socrates and Aristotle. And, of course, Hippocrates.” His eyes glowed “They are all original thinkers. Their ideas are revolutionary.”
“They are strangers to your world,” she pointed out. She faced the front again. It was awkward to stay twisted like that for very long.
“The scholars at the university consider the Greeks to be mentors of Islam. They have shaped our lives.”
Sydney’s lips parted. Alex had said almost exactly that, in the twenty-first century. “Funny,” she said, striving for a casual tone. “That’s what the Christians think, too.”
Silence. She couldn’t tell if he disapproved of Islam being compared to Christianity in that way or not.
He spoke softly. “The way you think…I have never met anyone like you before. Does everyone approach life as you do, in your world?”
“Not just my world, Alim. There are as many ways of thinking out there as there are worlds and people in them.”
“And you have seen many of them,” he finished. There was a note of yearning in his voice and Sydney’s heart jumped. He longed to see other worlds…
She could not change his mind about religion. Etienne would have convinced Alex through sheer passion, while she was too uncertain in her own arguments to rouse any curiosity in him to seek a different life. Strange cultures, though, she had firsthand experience with. If Alim hungered for strange new worlds, she could use that instead.
“I have seen many strange worlds in my travels,” she said in agreement.
“The lands beyond the Baḥr al-Rūm?” Alim asked.
Baḥr al-Rūm meant “Byzantine Sea”. Sydney realized he was talking about the Mediterranean, the sea he had never seen. “I have seen some of those lands,” she said. “I traveled to England a long time ago.” Two hundred years ago, from Alim’s perspective. “I have also seen a little of Palestine.” About three minutes of it, to be exact. However, if she could make the worlds beyond the sea sound exotic, romantic or enticing by stretching the truth, then she would lie her head off. “I know Iberia very well,” she added, even though her knowledge was from the twenty-first century. “Also, the Holy Roman Empire,” which was most of western Europe, “and Rome itself, which is a wonderland. Those are just the known lands. There are others, including my own.”
“Tell me about them,” Alim said. He made it sound like a command, yet she could hear the same hungry note in his voice.
Sydney was happy to comply. She only had to avoid details that would date her travels, or anything that would hint of future events. By concentrating on the people she had met and the way they lived and thought, she would be able to paint pictures of foreign lands without upsetting the timeline any further than she already had.
Alim was an active listener. He asked questions, prodding her onwards, while the wind roared around them.
Sydney didn’t know how long she spoke. Her sense of passing time was scrambled by the lack of external signs and the keening note of the wind, which blanketed her perceptions. She only knew she must keep speaking, keep weaving spells and drawing wonders in his mind.
Her future—everyone’s future—depended upon it.
Chapter Twelve
Alex checked the monitor panel once more. “Just to make sure. If the heart rate slows by more than twenty percent—”
“I’ve got it,” Neven said. “Sydney will be fine, Alex. All of you will. There and back, right?”
“You could always stay, Alex,” Veris suggested, his voice silky smooth. He didn’t think Alex should be jumping, eithe
r. “Then you’ll be sure.”
Alex’s chest grew tight. “No. I have to go.”
Veris shrugged. “Then, let’s go.”
Taylor and Marit took up positions in the middle of the corridor between the rows of beds, a few yards apart. Six of the beds had been lowered down to the ground, so that Neven and the twins could lift everyone easily onto a cot each, for monitoring.
The twins were sitting on the bed next to Sydney’s, looking sober and a little bit scared.
Alex touched Sydney’s arm one last time, then went over to where Marit stood. Rafe was already there.
Brody and Veris had their arms around Taylor’s waist. Brody looked over at them. “Marit, you’re steering. You give the signal to jump.”
Marit nodded and looked up at Alex. “Ready?”
“Yes. Thank you for this, by the way.”
She gave him a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You were very persuasive.”
“She means persistent,” Rafe added. He held up his hand. “I’m not disagreeing with you. I want to go get Sydney back as bad as you do. Only, they’re your hand prints on Brody’s twisted arm.”
Alex blew out his breath. “Let’s do this.”
Marit put her arms around both of their waists. “I’m glad I don’t have to kiss you guys. Aunt Sydney would choke.” She looked over at Veris, Taylor and Brody. “Ready?”
Taylor nodded.
“One…two…three!” Marit called. Her knees flexed.
The invisible hand swiped at them.
Then the bright darkness that wasn’t, while time and humanity rolled beneath them. It had been a long time since Alex had been here. He had never visited when he was stone cold sober and not in the grip of the time serum.
He could sense the others, but not see them. Marit would be communing with Taylor, pointing her toward the bookmark, so he waited, deliberately not thinking, not looking and trying not to be drawn toward any of the many bookmarks that were calling to him. Marit had to steer this jump. She knew where Sydney was.
Then a second invisible, giant hand grabbed them and they were being pulled down, yanked down, to tumble and fall…
* * * * *
It was dark when they landed.
And cold.
“…four, five six. Everyone made it,” Brody whispered.
“Something’s wrong,” Alex said, as his night vision adjusted. “This isn’t Cairo.”
Alex could see the shape of everyone. It was so dark, that silhouettes were all he could see. There was no starlight, no moon. Thick clouds roiled overhead. Alex could smell damp grass and earth. In addition, there was a bitter, black stench of smoke and burnt things. It was faint, yet it was distinct.
“There are no street lights,” Veris said.
Marit stepped forward. “No, no, no…!” she whispered, looking at something ahead of them. “Not now!” She spun around. “We have to go back. Hurry! Uncle Alex, quickly…”
Veris caught her arm. “Where are we? Where did you bring us?”
Just then, the clouds parted and a wedge of moon appeared. For humans, it would not illuminate anything. For vampires, it was all the light they needed.
Behind Marit and Veris, Alex saw the house take shape as the light increased. It was Rafe’s grand house, the one they had lived in for nearly ten years. Only this house was a black, burned-out shell. There was no second floor anymore, only jagged peaks of charcoal and square, toothless gaps where windows had once been. Burnt framing timbers had dislodged and fallen into the inside of the shell, crossing each other in a giant’s game of pick up sticks.
The stairs climbed up to empty space, perhaps the most mournful note of all.
“Oh lord…” Rafe whispered.
Veris turned Marit to face him. “Why here? Why this place? Why jump us wide?”
Marit shook her head. “It’s a bookmark for me. I didn’t mean to bring you here. We should go.”
“Maybe we should look around,” Brody said. “It’s a bookmark for a reason, Marit. Maybe if you face it—”
“You think I haven’t?” she demanded in a furious whisper, looking so much like Veris in that instant, that Alex was startled. “Why do you think the bookmark pulled me off target?” She tried to push Veris toward Taylor. “We have to go back.”
“Wait,” Taylor said. “I heard something, down in the basement.”
“No. There’s nothing. It’s empty. The house never gets rebuilt after the fire. Let’s go,” Marit said firmly.
Alex heard the faintest whisper of sound, at the very edges of his hearing limit. “Footsteps,” he said. “On the iron stairs in the second basement.”
Rafe nodded. “Yes, that’s what I heard, too.”
Brody turned to Veris. “Maybe we should leave this. Marit doesn’t think we should be here. Let’s listen to her.”
Veris crossed his arms, considering Marit. “You overplayed it, Marit. If it was just some homeless wretch hiding out in the basement, you wouldn’t be protesting so hard that we should go. You wouldn’t be so jumpy. What’s down there?”
“You really don’t want to see it,” Marit said quietly. “Please, please, just trust me, Far. Don’t go and look.”
Veris considered her for a long moment. Marit held still and stared back at him. Alex watched, fascinated. Two indominable wills were clashing head on.
Then Veris nodded. “Very well,” he said softly. “We’ll go back and regroup.”
Marit sighed. “Thank you.”
Gunshots, many of them, suddenly broke the soft sounds of the night, making everyone flinch. They were very close, maybe on the back street. Someone screamed. Then more shots.
“That was a semi-auto rifle,” Rafe said softly.
“Into the house,” Veris said shortly. “We’re exposed out here. We can jump from in there.”
They crossed the damp, calf-high lawn and stepped into the house, ducking timbers and stepping over blackened, unidentifiable lumps. Alex accidentally kicked one of the lumps. It jolted forward. A triangular shape appeared where the lump had been. Green and cream-colored Berber carpet showed a geometric pattern running around the edge of the border. How many times had he looked at those angles and traced the shape with his gaze, thinking of the tribes who had made the original carpets that had spawned an industry?
His heart started beating. He could hear Rafe’s running hard, too. Rafe looked at him, his eyes shadowed.
“No sirens,” Taylor said quietly. “Shots in the night and screaming…and no sirens in response. What is going on here?”
Alex froze as the sound of quiet sobbing reached him from somewhere beneath his feet.
“Mommy!” came the soft wail.
The gut-wrenching pain in the cry pushed him toward the back of the house where the old basement stairs were, before he made a decision to move. It was impossible to not want to help whoever was making that awful sound.
Everyone else moved with him, even Marit. She was the only human among them, yet she moved just as quietly. They climbed down the iron stairs, which had once been silvery gray, but were now rusted red and warped from heat.
The sobbing grew louder, making his gut clench. Alex stepped onto the concrete floor. The industrial carpet down here had burned away, leaving blackened patches of the glue that had held it in place. The first floor was still in place overhead and had protected the basement from the elements. The fire had not been as intense down here. There were still recognizable pieces of furniture. The cartons of books he had intended to unpack and catalogue one day were still there, the cardboard soggy and sagging, most of the cartons collapsed in on each other.
A movement from the corner of his eye made him turn to look.
A tiny shape behind the second furnace peeped out at them with enormous eyes.
“Marit!” Taylor breathed.
Alex looked at the older version of Marit. She was rubbing her temple and looked as though she was on the verge of tears. She knew what was about to happen
.
Taylor moved forward and crouched down to make herself less threatening. “Come here, sweetheart,” she said gently.
Marit stepped out from behind the furnace and came over to Taylor. “You’re not Mommy,” she whispered. Her cheeks were wet with tears and her eyes red. Alex judged she was perhaps five years old.
“Did you jump here from another time, Marit?” Taylor asked her.
She nodded, her eyes enormous.
“Then I’m another version of Mommy.”
“Like she is?” Marit asked, pointing.
Alex turned to look behind the iron stairs. It was dark back there, yet there was enough moonlight he could compensate for the darkness. His vision adjusted. The area behind the stairs was nearly untouched by the fire. The carpet was intact, the blinds over the basement windows hanging by one screw, the cords still tied in the little bundles Sydney always insisted in rolling them into, to keep them from tangling up if anyone ever needed to get out through the windows in a hurry…
Taylor was sitting on the carpet, her knees to her chest, rocking softly.
The Taylor who was with Marit stood and picked up Marit, too. She glanced at the older Marit, who was staring at the other Taylor. Tears rolled down Marit’s cheeks, although she was not making a sound, or moving at all.
“Gods and guardians,” Brody breathed, moving over to the other Taylor. He crouched in front of her and went to touch her arm, then hesitated. He looked at Veris, pain in his eyes. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Marit?” Veris asked, addressing the older Marit.
Her throat worked. “Ask her,” she said, her voice hoarse.
Veris moved around the stairs and settled in front of the rocking Taylor. Rafe took a step forward, too. Alex grabbed his arm and shook his head. He didn’t know for sure what was happening. He did know they had no part to play in this.
Rafe drew in a breath that shook and shoved his hands in his jeans. Alex could see him turn his hands into tight fists, outlined by the denim.
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