“So it means something. Your symbol is a starburst. Somebody’s trying to tell us something. But what? Is there someone with an insignia that has a circle or triangle who’s supposed to... do something?”
Lon considered. “Forte. Impala. Galactic Guards. All the Dragons. Black Magnum—lots of people with circles in their symbols. Triangles, let’s see...”
“But does it mean that they’re going to come here before your powers return?” Lina weighed conflicting mountains of happenstance. “Lon, I’m beginning to think that we really are in a pocket of the Timeless Realms—gods and faeries manipulating mortals, that kind of thing.”
Lon took her theory seriously. “There’s weird and there’s weird. I don’t think any of the people or creatures there would dabble in pseudo-techno-magick like holograms. But don’t quote me on that.” He looked again at the medallion pin, wondering. “The Timeless Realms...”
He sighed. “Well, we’ll just put this in the same column with all the other little things that we can’t figure out,” Lon picked up his vest from the sand and tucked the medallion inside. He took his time sealing it inside a pocket, and then gestured at her. “Let me see your head.”
“Two fingers,” Lina said before he could even put up any to test her. He harumphed as he parted her hair.
“It looks better today,” Londo pronounced. There was just a little bump now, pinker than the surrounding area. But Lina had been healing herself all day; had it been that bad to take so long to heal? “What do you think the possibilities are of a brain injury giving a temporary para-power?”
“Brain injury?” Lina asked and then, “Temporary?”
“You think it’s permanent?”
“I’d hate to lose it.” All around them were items that had been ported into the clearing, making the place almost home away from home: blankets, pillows, toilet paper... “I don’t think it’s temporary. Porting’s like—well it’s like something so obvious I wonder why I hadn’t done it before. It’s easy.”
Londo chewed lightly on his thumb. “So,” he said, “it’s a knowledge and not a power? Anyone could do it?”
Lina blinked. “I don’t know. They’d have to be clairvoyant.”
“Call it a skill, then. Is it getting weaker? Do you find it’s harder to remember how to do it?”
“As my head heals? Do you mean that maybe if the bump goes away, I’ll lose it?” Intense disappointment gripped Lina. It was her power! It was her mind! She didn’t want to go backward, not now, not when it was somehow connected to all this and to Londo!
“I’m just asking,” Lon replied. “It’s just some possibilities. Personally, I hope it stays around; I’ve found it very useful.” He stared to the south. “And it’s brought us so far away from Terry’s goons that they’ll never dream of looking for us here. Look at that—they’re still wandering through the south island. Next thing you know, they’ll be looking under rocks.” He let out a low, evil chuckle. “Fooled ya, Terry!”
When he turned back to her the furrow in his forehead evened out. The slight snarl turned into a gentle smile. “I’ll have to thank her someday for allowing me to meet you.”
Lina didn’t know what to say.
“You know,” he said softly, “that self-esteem problem rears its head too much with you. You can’t take compliments.”
“No,” she agreed. “I don’t believe them.”
Lon lay on his stomach in the clean white sand, propping his head up on his fist. “So you get to decide. Is the person giving you the compliments lying, or are you just lying to yourself?”
“Or is that person just desperate enough that he actually believes them for a little while?”
He nodded as he considered. “I can see where that might be an option, but it’s not now. Believe me. I’m glad you were the one. I’m very glad you’re here. You’re like everything I ever hoped for.”
Lina gave him a tolerant smile and shook her head disbelievingly.
Londo sat up and took her right hand between his. “Listen to me. I think you are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Clothes or no clothes.” He gave a sly smile that wrinkled his nose. “Especially no clothes. I love your body. It feels so good and it tastes so good. I love being able to feel what you feel; it’s absolutely amazing. Just like you, like all that magical stuff you do, the porting, the healing, talking to your guides. Meeting a storm deva.” He shook his head at her. “You’re amazing. I’m so glad it’s been you.”
He gave her the courage to speak, but it came out in a whisper. “If it was anyone, I’m glad it was you, Londo.”
He grasped her one hand and then took the other and swung her around so she straddled him, sitting on his thighs.
Lina said, “You’re so confident, so unafraid. That’s magic to me. And...” she touched his shoulders, his chest, “you’re so strong; you exude an incredible feeling of masculinity. Mystery and power rolled into one.”
Their eyes met in a riveting gaze. “You are a magnet, Londo Rand,” she declared softly. “I can’t seem to pull myself away from you.”
He knew there was more. “And?”
She slid her arms around his neck and leaned in to whisper in his ear. “And I love the way you touch me. I love the way you feel.” She kissed his neck under his ear, and he turned so their next kiss was mouth-to-mouth. They held on to it as they finished, quiet for a few moments.
Somewhere in the back of Londo’s mind, a list ticked off. She didn’t say she loved you, but she came close. He pushed the thought away before she could sense it.
Lina opened her eyes and leaned back to get a better view. “I said it before; you’re the handsomest man on the planet.”
He gave her a cocky grin, holding her hips against him. “I am? Still?”
“Um hum. Clothed or unclothed.” Now she gave him a wily smile. “But if you have to be clothed, keep the black outfit.”
“Hm?”
“I’ve always loved men in black. It reeks of romance. Of sex,” she said. “The great mystery of manhood.”
“You mean the great mystery of womanhood.”
“No mystery to that. Men: that’s life’s big mystery.” Her eyes moved distantly as she came up with a list. “Sexy men in black. Will Smith and those shades. Buffy’s Angel in that big ol’ black trench coat. James Bond in his tux. Luke Skywalker in Star Wars 5 and 6. I must have seen those movies forty times apiece, just to watch him. Mmm.”
“Dragonlord?” Lon asked curiously.
“Too scary. Besides... those little antennas?”
Lon laughed at that. “Who else?”
“Valiant,” Lina said. “Always Valiant.”
He hugged her to him to kiss her, then kiss her again with all the passion he could muster. She sank against him and her soft lips pressed so tightly against his. Suddenly he pushed her away.
“Wait. Listen,” he said tersely.
Lina strained her ears. Ocean surf. Birds. Wind.
Helicopter.
He gathered her up as he scrambled up himself, then pulled her into the cover of the forest. As he went he collected what he could of what they’d accumulated. Lina surveyed the clearing and teleported the leftovers into the forest with them, out of sight. They crept to the ocean edge of the woods, crawling under ferns and spiders webs.
Three helicopters in formation swept up the beach toward them in quick but careful order. They were spaced so that they covered a large swath of forest as well.
“We’re hidden enough,” Londo assured her. She nodded, then spotted the frisbee out there on the beach, black against the sand. With a few seconds’ concentration it disappeared, back to wherever that picture in Lon’s mind had been.
Lon saw it just as it vanished. “Good,” he said softly, trying to ignore the perfect little circle imprint left there in the sand or the tracks of bare feet running. If he had his powers, he could use his breath to blow it all askew. If he had his powers, he could do a lot of things. Maybe the brisk breeze today had blown th
e evidence enough. Maybe they’d think that this was left over from whoever had lived here yesterday or the day before. Maybe.
Within three minutes the helicopters were upon them. One came so close that they could see the people inside well enough to give an exact description.
**We’re hidden,** Londo repeated.
**They shouldn’t notice us,** Lina told him. She’d gathered the lines of force around them like a blanket. The soldiers in the helicopter were diligent, but not so much that she couldn’t create an area where they wouldn’t think of looking.
**Neat trick,** Lon said. **Teach me.**
She tried to show him what she’d done. It was an old childhood technique, one she’d used when she’d wanted to hide. She thought that maybe it had been what had shielded them yesterday.
Londo nodded. He thought he’d be able to do it, too, if he ever needed to. “Does it work on film? If they’re filming as they search and then they look at the video later, will we show up?”
“I don’t know. People don’t usually shoot your picture when you do this. They have to be specifically looking for you and knowing where you are, I think, in order to see you.”
The helicopters kept to their search pattern, up the beach away from them. Again it occurred to Lina and she could feel it occurring to Londo, too, that he was not the only target of the search. What could anyone want with her?
“Let’s put it this way, chérie,” he whispered to her as if someone from the copters might hear. “When we get out of here, the first place I’m taking you is to ParaNet headquarters. You’re going to put on some demonstrations.”
She looked doubtfully at him and he gave her a no-nonsense stare. She sighed. “Yes, Londo,” she said.
They watched the copters disappear over the horizon. Finally Londo rolled over to sit up.
“Urk,” he said and stopped, a strange look on his face. He clutched his stomach and caught his breath.
“Bad food?” Lina asked.
He shook his head with a brusque intensity that frightened her.
Immediately Lina sent her mind into his body. “Time’s running out,” she said tightly. Something was leveling out in his cells, as if they were preparing to stabilize.
Through their loop, he could sense them, too. “We still have time. Maybe a few times more, if you’re game. I can’t believe I’m doing this at all. I’ll take whatever you want to give me, chérie.”
In a little while it would all be gone. Lina reached for Lon’s hand.
Chapter 14
The copters had been gone almost an hour. Lon couldn’t detect any sign of increased activity on the south side of the island.
“Ah god, Lina, do that again,” Londo moaned as he arched his back. “Oh. Just like that. Ah.”
Lina rubbed the ball of his left foot hard, dragging her thumb down the center of his sole, then going back up to dig in.
“Skurny marde, not that hard!”
“Oh, be quiet. You have some stuck energy here. This is the way to release it. Might as well get it now while I can.”
“I walked ten million miles yesterday; give me a break. Ah oui.” He leaned back again on the fallen tree and pillows as Lina softened her touch. Suddenly he pointed up into the sky. “Look at that!”
With a gasp of apprehension, Lina dropped his foot, following his finger’s direction—no helicopter, just sky and clouds.
“Richard Nixon!” Londo declared, shaking imaginary jowls. “‘I am not a crook!’” The imitation was scathingly accurate.
“What?!” Darn him anyway. He was looking at the clouds, not mercenaries. “Lonnn!”
He grinned at her exasperation. “Look, you see him too.”
“You’re crazy. Crazy! Oh, I don’t see Nixon.”
“Then who?”
She studied the cloud formation, which might have two appendages giving a peace sign, but only if you had a very good imagination. “Rudolph,” she finally decided. They could be antlers.
He made a face at the sky and shook his head. “No visits from Santa for you this year,” he told her, “insulting his reindeer like that. What’s that cloud over there?”
They compared pictures with Londo always coming up with the more fantastical story with a matching mimicked line from this famous person or that. Lina began to wonder if he were really seeing these people in the clouds or just coming up with excuses to do impressions. He did them very well, usually with a pun or two to set off a famous line.
“George Washington as a vampire,” he finally decided for one cloud. “I really hate vampires. D’you think one could do anything with wooden teeth?”
“Paul Revere could make him silver fangs,” Lina theorized, “but would that kill him, like a silver bullet?”
“Could be, especially if he bit himself in the lip.” Londo stretched lazily, wiggling his toes. “No wonder Gary married Gina,” he said. “He says she gives great foot.”
Lina laughed and moved up to settle next to him. “Who’s Gary?”
He took her hand in his to explore its firm softness. “You know—the Bolt. Gina’s his third wife. You should see the two of them. Sometimes I wonder they didn’t get divorced the first month after they got married, arguing all the time. Guess they like to fight.”
“The Bolt.” The famous parahero. How strange to just drop his name like that, as if he were part of the normal world. “He’s from Chicago,” Lina said. Lon made an affirming noise as he moved along to her forearm.
“I’ve always wondered: if you’re headquartered or stationed, or whatever you call it, in New York, how come you live in Montreal?”
“It’s an easy commute for me. I’m the megapara Networker who lives closest to the Big Apple, so that’s what I was assigned. The non-megas get to work where they live, although they’re encouraged to live in trouble spots. And the non-paras almost always live in trouble spots when they start out. That’s why they got into the business to begin with, getting disgusted with crime and putting on a costume to stop it.
“Hal’s got the entire state of California to deal with—that’s enough trouble by itself—as well as western North America, but he lives in Oregon on the coast.”
Lina had always heard people assuming that Maximus lived in LA, but come to think of it, she couldn’t remember him ever actually saying that. Oregon, huh? Well, everyone knew how zealously Maximus guarded his privacy.
Lon continued, “I kid him about that, I mean he’s living in the middle of mudslides and forest fires, earthquakes and volcanoes, and he says it’s all a lot better than blizzards and split-pea soup in Quebec. I’ve got the eastern US and Canada, but I’m trying to find someone to trade off south Florida for; what a bunch of damnfool crazies!”
Lon admitted that ParaNet territories overlapped as the occasion warranted. Then he told her trivia about the other major players in the organization: Bolt, the legendary Olympia, Impala, Forte, Sovereign, and the Dragons, especially their leader, Dragonlord. Lon’s face soured when he came to the Galactic Guardian.
“Paul Granger. What a loser.”
“A Galactic Guard?” The respected ranks of the Galactic Brigade were hand-picked by the mysterious Galactic Sentinels. They chose only the best of the best to award conduits that funneled unlimited energy from the black hole in the center of the galaxy. Theirs was the mission to uphold basic justice and control chaos on planetary levels.
Londo looked as if he’d sucked on a lemon. “Let’s just say—and this is absolutely off the record—that Granger’s probably home right now lying around in his underwear drinking a beer and watching a basketball game on the tube—and logging in that he’s stopping a riot somewhere.” He glanced at her face. “Good,” he said. “I was shocked, too. If it makes it any better, he’s the only one I’ve ever met who was like that. It’s too damn bad that Rico Carapella retired. Now, he was a Galactic Guard.”
They covered a few more members before Lina asked, “Why isn’t it ‘Vaill...’?”
“‘
Vaillant,’” Londo supplied the French version of his name. “I started out in the States, in English. That’s what stuck, though some of the smart-ass newspapers in Quebec use the French every once in a while.
“Look at Forte,” he continued. “She had a time when she first started out. Russian, but her first big public appearance was in France, so one of the brilliant reporters there named her ‘Strong,’ Fort, with the final ‘e’ because she’s a girl. Then some music major who was reporting the news on CNN that night pronounced it as if it were Italian music, so it’s for-tay. That’s what stuck.
“She actually likes how it turned out better than the Strong version. Says it gives her more subtlety or finesse or something. She likes to think that she’s subtle. Don’t get me wrong; she’s very nice. You’d like her. But subtle she’s not.
“So who else do you want to know about? I’ve got all the dirt. Ask me about the Dragons, go on...”
“You don’t have any dirt on Maximus. There can’t be any.”
Lon gave an evil laugh. “The upstanding Boy Scout of all the paraheroes, of the galactic megaparaheroes. When the final biography’s written about him, there’ll be a few real surprises there. But for the most part, he’s exactly what he portrays himself to be. There’s no pretense. Just a few little hiccups in unlikely places.”
“I’m afraid to ask.” This was the world Lon would return to tonight or tomorrow when he left Lina behind.
“C’mon, more questions or else I’ll ask for another Big Mac. Is it time for supper yet?”
“We just had lunch. Do you want one, seriously?”
“I’ve worked off a few million calories today.” He theatrically drew the back of his hand across his forehead. “If ah don’t eat ah shall faint dead away.”
Then he belched.
It didn’t shake the foundations of the earth, but it was loud enough. It left Londo speechless, sitting there wide-eyed and slack-jawed at himself. Then he rolled onto his back, dissolving into gales of laughter.
Tears streamed down his face and Lina couldn’t help but laugh with him. “So that’s how it works,” he gasped, holding his belly. “I mean, je m’excuse.” Then he lay back down and laughed some more. “It came out of nowhere,” he claimed. “I didn’t swallow any air and I still did it.”
Touch of Danger (Three Worlds) Page 22