Time of Treason

by Susan M. MacDonald

  “Everyone sit near a door,” Darius ordered, “just in case we have to jump off quickly. Peter, you have your wallet so you’ll pay.”

  “I won’t,” Peter protested.

  “You will.”

  The orbs buzzed again, this time more insistent and painful. Riley gasped with the discomfort but prevented herself from yelping. The compulsion to pull out her orb pulsed through her bones. She clenched her fist until her nails bit into her palms and, not for the first time, cursed the entire Tyon Collective. Next time someone told her she was special and needed training to save the world, she was going to stab them in the eye with a pencil and run like hell.

  The bus ground to a halt with a squeal of brakes and the woman in the hijab muscled her way on before the doors had fully opened. Alec quickly followed her and Riley dashed on board immediately behind him. She turned and paused on the step as she heard the commotion. Peter had ducked around the couple and with a sudden violent tug pulled Darius off his feet. Darius’s grip on Peter’s arm hadn’t been broken but now Peter was stomping as hard as he could on Darius’s leg. Darius gave a vicious scissor kick and knocked Peter to the ground.

  “Are you getting on this bus or not?” The bus driver’s huge tortoise shell sunglasses slipped down her beaky nose. “Move it. I have a schedule to keep.”

  “Hold onto your Pampers, Grandma,” Riley muttered as she moved to put her body in the way of the doors.

  Darius got a hold of Peter’s neck and instantly the fight was over. Riley couldn’t hear what he said into Peter’s ear and she couldn’t read his lips through the filthy bus shelter glass but she did see the fight go out of Peter’s body as Darius hauled him to his feet. The kissing couple didn’t even come up for air as they passed. Filthy and disheveled, Darius literally dragged Peter up the stairs and onto the bus. He gave the driver his most charming smile and indicated with a nod towards Peter, “He’s got the fare.”

  Satisfied, Riley headed towards the middle of the bus. She sat beside Alec and gripped the metal bar on the back of the seat ahead of her. The bus started with a lurch before pulling into traffic. “You’re right,” she murmured to him. “He is a pain in the ass.”

  Alec gazed out the window and sighed. “He hasn’t even started yet.”

  2

  Alec leaned his forehead against the coolness of the window and shut his eyes. The bus lumbered along the main thoroughfare, hitting nearly every possible pothole as the sun sank in the west and his life spun further out of control. It didn’t seem to matter that moving the three of them back in time had probably saved their lives and everyone around them. Darius was sure it was a big mistake and that both the Tyons and the Intergalactic Council would be after him.

  He shifted in his seat, weariness and despondency washing over him with every breath. He was so tired it was hard to think. Somewhere in his core a trembling was building—the usual reaction to teleportation and the effects of an unbelievably difficult battle with Rhozan. He wished he could curl up and fall asleep for the next forty hours. Riley’s warm thigh touched his as she shifted beside him and his breath caught in his throat. He was even too tired to think about her, but that didn’t stop his heart from giving an unexpected leap the instant she accidentally nudged him.

  “How long are we going to stay on this bus?” Riley spoke to Darius in the seat behind them in a tight voice.

  “We’ll go all the way downtown, as close to the train station as we can. We can’t fly anywhere because none of you have passports,” Darius replied.

  “I’m not getting on any train.” Peter sounded sulky and wasn’t bothering to keep his voice down. It sounded like his lips were swollen.

  “Keep quiet,” Darius muttered.

  Peter kicked the back of Alec’s seat.

  “There aren’t too many places to hide,” Riley was whispering. “I mean, Canada’s a wicked big country, but the train only goes from East to West. What are we going to do? Jump off into a wheat field somewhere and hope no one notices?”

  “Yes, Riley, jumping off a moving train was just what I was thinking,” Darius replied. “We’ll let you go first.”

  “I have a better suggestion.” Alec could almost hear her unspoken words. Obviously so did Peter. The back of their seat was forcefully kicked again.

  “Now, now,” Darius rebuked saucily.

  “What about your training station in Toronto?” Riley asked in a more serious tone. “Is Anna there or could we hide there, say we’ve been there all along?”

  Alec could hear Darius’s sigh. “Anna’s in and out of the station frequently. At this present time, we’re on observation mode, not collection. I show up with three Potentials, one of whom won’t keep his mouth shut, and the cat is out of the bag. We’re going to have to disappear.”

  “But won’t they be able to find you with the implant?” Riley asked.

  Alec felt his stomach drop. He’d forgotten the Tyons had embedded a translation device like Darius’s just behind his ear. He had no idea what other functions it might have. Could he be tracked by it?

  “Good thought, Riley.” Darius sounded frustrated. “You’re right. They can and I suspect eventually will, once they’ve narrowed the field and realized we’re high on the list of suspects. We’ve got to think of a convincing story for Anna that will explain where I’ve been and why you three are with me by the time she shows up.”

  The bus jerked to a halt. The front doors opened and a laughing group clambered on board to the soundtrack provided by a boombox thudding a heavy bass line. Alec cracked open an eye as the profanity-laden music got closer. Great, gang-bangers looking for trouble. Alec closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. With any luck they’d head to the back of the bus and harass someone else.

  The bus pulled away from the curb and entered traffic. In the distance a horn blared. The music got very loud and didn’t fade.

  “Hey, look at this. We got two lovers on this bus.” The young man’s voice was thick with an unidentifiable accent and oozed menace. It was right beside him, Alec realized with a sinking feeling.

  “Go harass someone who cares,” Riley snapped. Alec reached out, grasped her hand and gripped it tightly. This was not the time to antagonize anyone. Especially gang members who just lived to make someone’s life miserable. He opened his eyes and twisted in his seat.

  The leader was nearly as short as Riley, but his neck was probably as thick as her thigh, and his dark skin was a mass of tribal African tattoos, even over the dome of his shaved head. The three others with him didn’t look any friendlier, especially the one carrying the boombox on his shoulder, whose head almost brushed the roof of the bus.

  All four were staring at Darius and Peter with a mixture of glee and loathing. Darius had his arm around Peter’s shoulder and his hand gripped Peter’s upper arm tightly to keep him under control. Darius was eyeing the gang with mild fascination but Peter was sinking lower in his seat, showing the haunted look Alec knew so well, despite his attempt to conceal it. Here we go again, Alec sighed to himself.

  The gang leader poked Darius’s shoulder with a finger. “Hey, boy, he your sweetheart?”

  Darius cocked one golden eyebrow upwards.

  “I’m talkin’ to you.” The poke became a shove. The other gang members sniggered. Alec felt Riley’s tremor. He squeezed her hand tighter.

  “My aural acuity is not compromised,” Darius said. On the surface, his tone was quite reasonable. “Merely the inanity of the request that precludes a response.”

  It took a minute for the gang to realize the insult. “Shut his trap for him, Leon,” the boombox owner encouraged.

  Leon needed no encouragement. He twisted his fingers into Darius’s shirt, bunching the fabric tightly, and pulled upward. A slight tearing sound provided the background for the string of profanity. Darius didn’t blink.

  “We don’t like your kind on our bus,” said one of the quartet, who was missing two of his front teeth.

  “Because you’re
worried about your own latent feelings or because your own equipment is so pathetic?” Riley piped up.

  Alec groaned.

  Leon growled as he let go of Darius’s shirt and reached for Riley.

  Alec didn’t hesitate. He knew from experience that the best defense was a painful and unexpected offence. Leaping over Riley, he dove into the boom-box carrier and belted him as hard as he could. The man crumpled under the well-placed cross. An elbow to the jerk behind him had blood spewing from the guy’s nose. Anger surged in Alec’s blood. He was sick and tired of this kind of idiot. Sick of having to fight other people’s battles. Sick of everything.

  The swaying bus didn’t give much room to maneuver but Alec managed a straight kick and a powerful uppercut before the third thug knocked him to the floor. He was aware that Darius had entered the fray only by Riley’s shouted warning, “Darius, look out” and her furious command to Peter to “help them, you dipstick.” Alec didn’t have time to argue that Peter never fought his own battles. Someone was holding him down, grinding his face into the accumulated dirt in the rubber flooring and twisting his arm behind his back so painfully he cried out. He managed a kick that connected with solid flesh before a heavy blow to his back stopped everything.

  For a moment Alec wasn’t sure what had happened. Only that his heart nearly stopped as his body acknowledged the horror his brain was slower to admit. Something warm and sticky soaked through his shirt and trickled down the small of his back.

  Riley screamed.

  Alec could feel the bus slowing down, heard the shouts, felt the sizzle of orb power as Darius ended the fight. He was aware of Riley dropping to all fours beside him and yelling something as she pressed her hands into his back. The pressure hurt it more and he opened his mouth to tell her so, but strangely the words wouldn’t come. A hazy sense of fear surged through him but he was oddly distanced from it. It would be pretty stupid to die now, he thought feebly as the world around him faded into nothingness. The guy who saves the world falls victim to a cheap switchblade. He could see the headlines now.

  3

  Riley’s heart was in her mouth and pounding so loudly she almost didn’t hear Darius’s hurried instructions. The world around her— Alec’s limp body, the warm blood between her fingers, the crowd on the bus craning their necks to see—disappeared with a frisson of electricity and the usual surge of Tyon Power. Darius’s work, clearly.

  Riley focused her attention on Alec the instant they arrived wherever Darius had sent them. The blood was still welling up through the attempt at a seal she’d made with the palm of her hand against his tee-shirt. She could feel his heart labouring through his ribs. She’d only seen the silver blade for a second but the sight of its bloody emergence from Alec’s back was seared into her memory.

  “Get your orb out. Heal that incision.” Darius’s words seemed to come from far away. Without hesitation, Riley reached into her pocket and pulled out her orb without question. Hands trembling so hard she could barely hold onto the slippery crystal, she applied it to Alec’s back, just at the opening of the knife wound. She closed her eyes. Concentrate, she urged herself. She tried to visualize the injury. The torn and bleeding skin, the ripped muscles, the veins spilling his precious life blood into the cavity. She shuddered. She prayed that his kidneys weren’t damaged or, worse, a main blood vessel.

  The orb began to heat up as the Tyon power sizzled underneath her skin. She tuned out Darius’s urgent voice and Peter’s whining responses. She didn’t pause to notice where Darius had brought them. She didn’t pause to even think how to do what she was doing. Urgency was her teacher. Heal. She pushed the power through her hands into Alec. Please heal.

  The floor underneath her knees lurched slightly and she nearly fell. Instantly righting herself, she focused harder. The lurch repeated twice more then settled into a steady movement forward. Someone dropped down beside her. A second pair of hands bumped up against hers.

  “Don’t stop. I’m helping,” Darius gasped in her ear.

  Riley nodded. Darius’s orb clinked with hers as he shoved his closer to the wound. The heat grew stronger.

  The pulsing of power steadily increased, with one orb feeding off the other, amplifying in strength. Riley became entranced in the effort. She lost track of time. She was vaguely aware of her knees becoming sore, of movement around her and sounds of traffic. She felt Darius’s arm and shoulder against hers. His exhaustion and concern penetrated the healing fog but she pushed that awareness away. The only thing that mattered was saving Alec’s life.

  Someone was shouting. The noise was insistent and irritating. Her concentration broke. She opened her eyes and blinked with amazement.

  He’d transported them to a camper. A massive, top of the line, over-decorated RV, she corrected. Alec was lying on the floor in between the faux marble table and the matching plush velvet sofa bed. Darius was squished against her and Peter was ensconced in a beige leather captain’s chair and steering. The tasselled curtains over the wide window above the sofa swung rhythmically back and forth and something inside the mini-fridge to her immediate right was sloshing with each sway. Someone had paid a ridiculous fortune for a made-to-order mobile palace in gold and fawn.

  “Do I turn east or west?” Peter repeated loudly.

  “East,” Darius said weakly. Riley turned to stare at him in shock.

  Darius’s skin was pasty white, his freckles stood out in frank relief and his lips were bloodless. She shoved him with her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  Darius swallowed and gave a slight nod. “Hate the sight of blood,” he whispered.

  Instantly relieved and not a little annoyed, Riley focused her attention back to Alec. He was breathing easier she noted and his heart didn’t seem to be labouring as hard as before. She peered at her bloody hands. There was barely any blood on the floor, although the back of his shirt and the waist of his jeans were soaked. She raised her orb for a quick peek underneath. The skin, puckered and angrily red, was knitted together. A wave of relief surged through her veins and she began to shiver.

  “He’s gonna be okay,” she said to Darius.

  He bobbed his head in reply.

  “I can take over now. You rest,” she ordered. He’d transported all three of them; a herculean task for an Operative. It was a wonder he wasn’t unconscious with the strain.

  “Sure?” Darius asked. But he was already pulling his orb away from hers and leaning back against the sofa with his eyes closed.

  “Sure.” Riley shifted into a more comfortable position. She grimaced at the cramp in her left leg and banged her heel against the carpeted floor to restart the circulation. “What on earth was he thinking?”

  “To start the fight?” Darius murmured softly. “You, probably.”

  “I can look after myself,” Riley turned her head away. She rapidly blinked the tears away. “I don’t need him dying for me.”

  “I’d say he’d tell you that you’re worth dying for.”

  “And you agree with him? Would you die for someone?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Darius grinned. “I’m much too important to sacrifice myself for anyone.”

  Riley couldn’t help the smile. It was good to see that his ego was safely overinflated, that the strain of saving them hadn’t been too much. “See if there’s something to drink in the fridge, Dare.”

  Darius sighed deeply but leaned over her shoulder to pull open the mini-fridge door behind her. The vacuum popped as it opened and the rack of cans rattled while he rooted around. The door closed.

  “Here,” he held out an ice-cold can of soda.

  “Can you open it for me?” she asked. “My hands are kinda full.”

  Darius stood up instead and stepped unsteadily over her. He turned on the water in the mini-sink and washed his hands for a moment, scrubbing at the sticky blood. He then washed off the two cans of cola he had removed from the fridge, rinsing his bloody handprints down the drain. Satisfied, he stepped back over Riley and
flopped down onto the sofa. There was a sharp crack and hiss as he pulled the tab. He handed her a can. In the front of the cab, Peter was swearing at the traffic and gave both of them a dark look in the rearview mirror.

  Riley took a grateful swig and swallowed, while keeping the orb in place. Darius drained his can, belched loudly and sighed in satisfaction. After a couple of moments, he opened his eyes. “That feels better.”

  “What? The drink or the typically gross display of masculine lack of manners?” Riley said as she took another mouthful.

  Darius’s lips curled into a slight grin. “Both.”

  “I see you’ve got Happy Boy under control,” she nodded towards Peter.

  Darius rubbed his face with his hands and sighed with evident fatigue. “Maybe a bit too much,” he said quietly. “I had to move pretty fast. I couldn’t afford to be subtle.”

  “How long will it last?” Riley asked.

  Darius shrugged weakly. “Who knows? Maybe it’s permanent.”

  A horrible vision of Peter, endlessly trailing behind Darius, waiting to do his bidding, flashed across her mind. Forcibly shoving that thought away, she focused on the more pressing issues. “We’ve both used our orbs, Darius. They’ll be onto us any minute.”

  “I know,” Darius frowned. “I can only trust we’re far enough from the time travel site that they don’t put two and two together. Hopefully, my signature is distinct enough from our combined one that no one notices.”

  “And Anna?”

  “Probably locking down my co-ordinates right now.” Darius leaned forward. Just for a moment, an irrepressible spark flickered in his eyes. “You’ll have to give me your orb. She can’t see you using one. She’ll know something’s up.”

  “And what’ll you tell her about this?” Riley placed the empty can on the counter and waved her hand over Alec’s unconscious form.

  “I came across three Potentials. All at once. And saved you from attack.”