by Casey Wyatt
“I think I’ve been there a time or two.” Again, with the mischievous grin that I’d come to love.
“Have you watched me dance?”
“I’ll never tell,” he said, setting us down on the theater’s rooftop.
The first time we’d met, Ian knew who I was. At the time, I assumed it was because we both lived in Austin and the vampire community was fairly small.
But now I wondered. What if he really had seen me way back when?
“Why do I feel like you know more than you’re letting on?”
“Because I do.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. The grin fell and his right hand stilled.
Uh-oh. He’d found them. I schooled my face to be as neutral as possible.
He retrieved the item formerly known as my underwear from his pocket. The scraps of material fluttered in the wind. His nostrils flared. His lips moved to speak before disbelief seemed to stop his lips. For the barest of moments, I felt his emotions dart into my head.
“I can explain,” I said.
“Shush. I’m thinking.” He closed his eyes, then said, more to himself than to me, “You are mine. I am yours.”
“Is it you?” I asked hoping my Ian had come back to me again. When the harsh lines around his eyes and mouth softened, I knew he was my Ian.
“Yeah, luv,” he said with that crooked smile I adored. “I don’t know how long I can stay.”
Jonathan’s call sliced into my head. We didn’t have much time.
I rushed into his arms, not caring. Only wanting however many moments of comfort he could grant. It would have been perfect except for the constant vibration of Jonathan’s call.
Putting some space between us, I looked up at him and frowned. “I need to go to my Sire.”
“Aye, he’s giving me a headache.” Ian’s fingers traced a path down my cheek. Worry furrowed his brow. He winced.
“The other you. He’s fighting to come back. Isn’t he?”
“That he is. Stubborn prick,” Ian confirmed. “I will fight him as long as I can.”
“No. Don’t. Can you call a truce instead?” I said, not quite believing the words coming from my mouth.
As much as I hated to entertain the idea, I needed help in this timeline. I was out of my element with the revenants. And my brother was a crime lord. Just because we were related didn’t mean he’d take my side. Even I wasn’t that naive. It wasn’t practical to continue to convince Ian’s earlier self to help me every time my Ian lost control. No. Better to make peace and hope he’d continue to assist me.
“Are you sure, luv?” he asked. “I can’t promise anything.”
“Yes. I can trust you in any time period.”
Ian swooped in, capturing me for a slow, sexy kiss. His body tensed the moment the other Ian took control. Instead of pushing me away, this Ian finished the job. When he broke away, I may have mewled my disappointment.
“Ah, pussycat, you make such delicious sounds.” He laughed, then grew sober. “I believe the tale you’ve spun for me.”
“You’ll help me?”
He snugged me against him, the hardness pressing against my thigh telling me he had a different kind of assistance in mind. “I will. But first, I have a mind to take you here on this roof.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
We turned at the unexpected voice. I don’t know how he managed it, but Jonathan had snuck up on us.
Ian’s eyes flashed red. The casual relaxed pose was a lie. He was ready for a fight.
“Don’t look so surprised, my wife.” He aimed the comment at Ian like a rocket. “I’m only here because of you.”
He displayed a well-worn envelope between two fingers. I recognized it immediately. The letter I had left him hoping he’d see it before Thalia could kill him.
“You read it. You were supposed to wait.” For about forty more years. What had I done? Jonathan knew too much, too soon.
“Well, as you put it, you Marty McFly’d me. What was I supposed to do?” Jonathan tucked the letter away. “Time to leave this rooftop. We have work to do.”
“IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME.” Jay greeted me with a big bear hug the moment we entered Jonathan’s cramped office.
The place couldn’t hold three people on a good day. At the moment, the room was piled high with cardboard boxes. In a few weeks, the troupe would be moving to a larger venue. In ten more years, we’d move to Austin. My, how time flew.
How we’d all fit inside, well, not my problem. As it turned out, Jonathan bypassed the office and headed to the wall that concealed the staircase leading to our apartments.
I trailed behind the men, lingering as we passed the backstage area.
Jay turned and came back for me. “Where were you? I thought Jonathan was going to blow a gasket when you ignored his call.”
“Promises, promises,” I said.
Jay hung beside me, staring at Nina. “Isn’t she something?”
I nodded my agreement and watched the show.
A snare drum tapped the classic strip tease rhythm that, by the 1960s, had become a perennial anthem. Nina, decked in a thong, strutted with perfect timing, ass cheeks bouncing. A flash of glitter covered her bountiful breasts. The crowd cheered when she swung the tassels of her pasties.
Nostalgia stung me. In the future, she’d be stricken with a virus that might kill her. Because of me.
“Cherry?” Jay tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey. Are you okay?”
I cleared my throat. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
We assembled in the apartment that I referred to as “the mothership.” It was decorated with the best trends of the late sixties: a deep orange shag rug, mod furniture, shiny mind-bending wallpaper, and, my personal favorite, the egg chairs.
Ian looked around the room, appalled. He gave me the side-eye and I shrugged. Don’t look at me.
I had my own flat in the heart of London. Jonathan paid a fortune for it, but I hadn’t cared. He and I needed our own spaces. By 1969, we’d reached the point where he gave me free rein outside of the club.
The mothership was his official “Sire space” to deal with Family business. In our line of work, the drama could be epic.
Jay flopped onto the couch and folded his arms. “What is it with you?”
“Moi?” I said, pretending not to know what he meant. This was 1969 Jay. He didn’t need to know about the future.
“Don’t play dumb with me.” Jay patted the couch next to me. When I sat down, he spoke quietly. “I know why you’re here.”
“Do you now?” I folded my arms and leaned against the couch’s unyielding cushions. A bed of nails would have been more comfortable.
“You’ve uncovered the secret to space-time manipulation.” He drew closer. “Tell me how you did it.”
“No.” I pursed my lips. I knew what was coming next.
“I’d tell you.” He poked my ribs. “Come on.”
“Stop wheedling me.” I stared at him. “Look. I shouldn’t have written that letter. There could be dire consequences.”
“No, sir.” He narrowed his eyes, pouting.
“Quit trying to get your way.” I studied Jay’s face for any hint that he actually knew what was happening. He was an excellent bullshit artist. “I’ll tell you. On one condition. Tell me something embarrassing.”
“Ugh. Fine. I watch Star Trek: The Next Generation in my underwear while eating Fruity-Os. And I’ve been known to proclaim myself The King of Jayville and my domain is the couch. How’s that for personal and embarrassing?” Jay’s right eye twitched.
Jonathan and Ian joined us, their deep conversation apparently over. Ian perched on the arm rest next to me. Jonathan pretended not to care and sat on a barstool at the tacky Tiki bar tucked against the wall.
God, how I despised that thing. Even nostalgia couldn’t soften my feelings.
“Shall I continue?” Jay asked. “I’m happy to describe my magnificence whilst wearing tighty-whities.”
; “That’ll do just fine, mate.” Ian rubbed his eyes. “Nope, I can still see you in your drawers. Thanks for that.”
Jay shrugged. “You asked for it.”
My brain caught up to what Jay had said. “Hold on. Did you say Next Generation? That doesn’t air until 1987. Ha! I knew you were up to something!”
“You did not!” Jay teased. He tapped his temple. “Unlike husband number two, my earlier self is open and flexible to the idea of time stream travel. We didn’t have to fight about which of us would be in charge.”
“So, you knew the truth the entire time we’ve been talking.” I punched his biceps, enjoying his wince of pain. “Jerk.”
Jay shrugged, inclining his head toward our Sire. “We thought it best.”
“Really?” I faced Jonathan. “At some point, are you ever going to stop hiding things from me?”
“Maybe,” he said. I doubted he meant it. We both knew he would die in the future.
“How is everyone, Jay?” I curled my palms into fists, ready to hear the grim news.
Jay didn’t bother to sugarcoat it. “Not good. So far, no one has succumbed.”
Ian’s hand landed on my shoulder. A dangerous gesture in front of Jonathan. “Then it’s only a matter of time?”
“Yes.” Jonathan stared at Ian. His eyes were their normal shade of brown. If Ian had done that in public there would have been a brawl. Touching a mated partner was a big no-no. The fact that I belonged to both of them, albeit at different times, only muddied the situation.
Standing, if only to shake Ian’s hand off me, I turned to Jonathan. “For once in your life, tell me everything.”
“No,” Jonathan said with his patented eat-shit-and-die look.
“Good to know that my rebellious streak rubbed off on you. I knew you’d read the letter.”
Jonathan gave me a knowing smile. “Sure you did.”
“Fine. Whatever. I can’t shake the feeling that this—” I waved my hand around the room “—is happening because of something you did.”
Jonathan stiffened as if my allegation rocked him. More telling, he turned to the bar and poured himself a drink. After swallowing, he faced me again. “If that’s the case, let’s get started.”
“Where?” I asked.
“At the library,” said Jay with the enthusiasm of a child treated to an ice cream cone.
I looked skyward. “Heaven save me from nerds.”
Jay snorted. “Heaven’s got nothing to do with it.”
That’s what worried me.
“IF I WERE THE LOST Ship, where would I be?” Jay cracked his knuckles, then cranked on the microfiche machine.
Before we left, I’d handed him the Tarot card. It took him eight seconds to declare the symbols on the border were coordinates.
When I’d asked how he could possible know, he said, “I’ve been studying Martian. These are numbers. Ergo they could be coordinates. Let’s start there, shall we?”
I swear he made it up to justify time in the moldering reference room.
The machine whirred and hummed as he scrolled through old newspaper clippings. We’d settled into a corner of a nearby university library.
Jay grumbled. “What wouldn’t I give for the Internet right about now?”
“Your left nut?” I suggested with a smile.
“This is going to take forever.”
“Don’t look so worried. If it’s here, we’ll find it,” Ian said, standing sentinel behind us.
I snorted. “In the UK? It could be anywhere. There are more archeological sites than you can shake a stick at.”
“While that is true, I think we can narrow down the search.” Ian turned the Tarot card over on the side. “These are coordinates, yes?”
Jay held his hand out for the card without turning his head. His attention was fully on the microfiche spinning by. How he could read anything intelligible was beyond me. “Even if they are coordinates, there is no guarantee they will lead us to the ship you want.”
“Why this time period?” Ian asked, his hand resting on the small of my back. “If the ship landed centuries or even millennia ago, it should still be there in the future.”
“Something must have happened in 1969. Maybe someone excavated it. Or maybe it was destroyed at a later date. This is the time frame I was called to. It must have been for a reason,” I said.
The body of King Richard III had been located during parking lot construction. He’d been buried there for over five hundred years. Even from Mars, we kept up with the news. Jay had been so geeked out over the discovery that I worried for a moment he might leave to see it for himself.
“Ian, you once told me that before you were turned, your tribe saw a falling star. Could that have been the ship?”
“I don’t know.” He tapped his bottom lip, mulling the idea. “It seems to me a Martian ship would have hit the earth long before anyone settled here.”
“That’s a possibility,” I conceded.
The Eliade’s historical timeline had always been murky. Science, at least according to mortals, says Mars never developed a sentient civilization. And if it contained life, it had been microbial, killed off by various planetary events before it could evolve further.
Like I said, that’s the mortal version. And while I believe in science, my own existence was proof that the universe had other ideas about what constituted life.
What if the Ancients used other means of travel? They had technology for jumping the time stream. But where would they go and whose minds would they jump into?
The microfiche machine stopped, the sudden silence jarring me from my thoughts.
“Hey guys,” Jay said, voice low, finger pointing to the view screen. “Look at this.”
Ian and I hunched behind Jay. He’d stopped on a headline from the week before. Ian and I read in near unison, “Local man claims alien spaceship ate his brain.”
All righty. “What does this have to do with us?”
Jay looked surprised at my question. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the part about a spaceship.”
“If his brain was eaten, how could he tell the story?” Ian asked, not so innocently.
Jay couldn’t see the grin on his face. I couldn’t help but laugh at the pattern of good natured ribbing that was in store for both of them. Provided we didn’t wreck the future.
“And where did this man say his brain was eaten?” I managed to ask with a straight face. Ian did have a point, though the more I read the man’s allegations, the more I wondered if his brain had been consumed at some point.
“It says here, he’s a farmer named Alan Lucke from Little Saxham,” Ian said.
“Sounds like his luck ran out.” Jay chuckled.
I was the only one not joining in on the joke. Little Saxham was in the vicinity of Belmont. What were the odds that the Lost Ship was conveniently located near my family home?
“Jay, why this article? There must be dozens of stories like this. People claiming to be kidnapped by aliens or telling other weird monster stories.”
In fact, in the United States there were entire tabloids devoted to UFOs, monsters, and other strange phenomena. Given my usual luck or lack thereof, I found it hard to digest that the tabloids had a hotline to the cure.
“I can’t explain it. My gut says this is the one,” he said, scribbling notes on a scratch pad.
“No,” I insisted. “My gut is telling me this is too coincidental.”
“Your gut is mistaken,” Jay said with an offended sniff.
“They can’t be coordinates. It doesn’t make sense. That would mean someone, thousands of years ago, somehow knew to place the information on this Tarot card.”
Ian ignored our bickering and picked up the card.
“Always go with the gut, I say.” He pressed the card against the microfiche’s screen, backlighting it. A different series of numbers appeared.
Jay studied them for a moment. “Card catalogue. Those are books.” After hurriedly scribbling the
numbers, he tore the paper into three pieces. “Let’s see where this leads. Good call, Cherry.”
“Don’t act so surprised.” I wasn’t a dimwit.
“The numbers are not in the same sections. Do you think it means anything?” Ian studied the slips of paper.
“Only one way to find out.” I took my assigned lot and searched the stacks, locating the first two books, no problem.
One of them was an English country cookbook, the other about 19th-century railroad cars. Ian was correct. Neither subject related to the other. A quick glance at the author’s name and, nope, not the same.
The final book proved to be harder to locate. The library was on several levels, including a cramped basement area. According to the numbering system, the last book would be there.
Harsh fluorescent light assaulted my eyes as I came down the steps. At least it was well lit. The air reeked of musty books and industrial cleaner. Isolated, wooden desks with high sides capped the far end of every aisle.
Maybe this part of the library contained racy books or forbidden texts. Fun as that idea sounded, the more I wandered, the more boring the subjects became.
Botany, obscure religious texts, legal texts. Hardly fun stuff. Not that it mattered. The last book was proving to be elusive.
I was about ready to go back and find the others, when I found the aisle. Tucked around a bend like an afterthought, the area dripped with gloom.
Darkness lingered like a storm cloud. A willy-nilly sensation tickled the back of my neck. I scanned the shelves, hoping the tome was within reach and I could snag it without having to go any farther.
No such luck. The catalogue number landed further down the row. Shaking off the unease, I marched down the aisle. I was a vampire, not a scared human.
Despite my brave thoughts, trepidation zipped up my spine as I grabbed the thick volume—something called The Curious Case of Hellebore. I added its heft to my pile and retreated backward. Cripes. It weighed a ton. More than a book should, more like a gold bar.
Whatever. The creepy crawly sensation hadn’t dissipated. I wanted out of there.
I headed back in the direction I came from. The faint scuffle of footsteps approached from behind. Convinced it was another library patron or a librarian, I kept walking. And walking. I know I had only gone a few yards to retrieve the last book. On the return trip, I’d already walked way more than that.