by Alicia Ryan
Pietro glanced over his shoulder at his new foe, and Roxanna saw him wince. Good, she thought. I hope it hurts.
Then Pietro turned back to face Andrew, who took two giant steps and, with an overhand blow, sank the wooden stake deep into Pietro’s chest. The vampire staggered back into the far wall, and Andrew followed, shoving the stake deeper.
Phillip ran toward them. “Andrew,” he called out.
Andrew stepped aside as Phillip swung the sword he’d pilfered from Darren’s study. But Pietro ducked and then lunged, pushing himself forward with one hand and reaching for Phillip with the other. Phillip tried to evade his grasp, but Pietro caught him by the ankle, jerking it out from under him. Phillip landed hard and cried out when his elbow struck the floor. He let go of the sword.
But Pietro didn’t pursue his advantage. In fact, he didn’t move at all. He just laid there, face down, one hand still wrapped around Phillip’s leg.
For a moment, they were all transfixed, waiting. Then Phillip pulled his ankle from the vampire’s grasp.
“Is he...?” he asked.
Andrew and Roxanna both approached, and Andrew reached down to turn him over. The stake, now barely visible, had penetrated deeper into his chest when he fell reaching for Phillip.
“Looks like that does work,” Roxanna said.
“Let’s make sure,” Phillip said, getting to his feet. “Andrew, hold his head.”
Nodding, Andrew grabbed a fistful of the vampire’s hair and used it to pull his torso up off the floor.
Phillip came around him and took the swing he’d missed before, severing Pietro’s head quite neatly from the rest of him.
“I’d say we’re sure,” Andrew commented, dropping the head and kicking it into a corner.
Roxanna winced, but only at the gore—she felt not a drop of guilt.
***
“Roxanna.” Darren tried to sit up when he saw her come in. “You’re alive.” He looked past her. “And Phillip. What happened?”
Andrew entered last.
“Do I have you to thank for this?” Darren asked him. “Where’s Pietro?”
“Pietro is dead,” Andrew replied, “and, yes, you do have me to thank for having the good sense to get your friends. I’m afraid the plan was entirely her idea.” He nodded toward Roxanna.
“We took his head off,” Phillip explained.
“And staked him,” Roxanna added.
“Staked...?” He shook his head. “I don’t think I care. As long as he’s gone and you’re still here.”
He struggled to a sitting position, and Roxanna rushed to his side to help.
“Oh, Darren,” she exclaimed. “Look at you.”
He was sure he did look like death. He felt like it. He was covered in bite marks, and Roxanna’s warm hands scorched his cold skin.
“You have to let me help you.”
“No...” How could he tell her he needed it too much? That he was afraid he couldn’t be careful with her. Not with her blood.
“No,” Phillip interjected. “Me first.”
Darren looked up, realizing Phillip had seen his dilemma. He nodded. “The boy first.”
Roxanna stood, letting Phillip take her place by the bleeding Darren, but Phillip dropped to his knees in front of him instead. Then he pulled aside the collar of his shirt and coat.
“Like this?” he asked.
“It’ll do.” Darren looked at him for a long moment. “This is going to hurt,” he said finally.
“You have my permission, nonetheless.”
Darren leaned forward, put one hand to the side of Phillip’s face, the other on his shoulder, and bent to drink.
Phillip stiffened under him as his fangs sank in and bit back a cry. Darren wished he had the energy, or the spare blood, to make it pleasurable. He hated for his first bite to be like this.
When the worst of his need was satisfied, he let him go. Phillip rocked back on his heels and reached for the edge of the sofa to steady himself.
“Are you alright?” Darren asked. He didn’t think he’d taken too much.
Phillip nodded and then went to take a seat in one of the chairs against the other wall.
“Do you need more?” Roxanna asked.
Darren nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
“You know I’ll never mind.” She knelt down in Phillip’s place and gasped, then sighed, as he drank from her.
He stopped before he could lose himself, her passionate response making that much more difficult than it had been with Phillip, despite the fact that his need was not now as great. When he released her, she smiled and got up to sit beside him. Darren looked around the room and marveled that they had both risked their lives to save him—and been successful.
He turned to the still solid Andrew. “Did you finish him?
Andrew shook his head. “Not quite.”
“Why not? You might have been able to stay flesh if you’d taken more. All.”
“I don’t think I’m meant to be flesh,” he said. “Plus, I didn’t know if I’d retain my magic, and I have the feeling there’s one last magic trick you may want from me.”
He looked pointedly at Roxanna, and her heart soared. Could he mean it?
Andrew nodded. “I believe, for a while, I may be strong enough to send you back to your time.” He looked at all three of them now. “All of you.”
Darren’s jaw dropped. “You can do that?”
“I think so,” Andrew confirmed. “I feel quite strong. I’ll need your blood again, of course, but if we don’t wait too long, it is possible it can be done.”
Darren threw his arms around Roxanna. “I have no fonder wish than to see your future with you.”
He looked back at Andrew. “How soon can we go?”
“I assume you’ll need to make a few provisions, but the sooner, the better.” Andrew’s eyes focused on Phillip across the room. “All of you who wish to, that is.”
Roxanna’s heart fell. Phillip had things to hold him here. And it showed in the pained look on his face.
“Phillip,” Darren said, turning Roxanna loose, “how can you not come with us?”
“I’ll...ah...just leave you to sort this out,” Andrew said. “And I’ll spirit that body away before Harris comes up and has a heart attack.”
She looked from where he had been back to Darren. “Should you rest?” she asked.
“Probably.” He looked at her with a question in his eyes. “Come upstairs?”
She put her arm around him, under his shoulders, and they stood together. Phillip crossed the room and took Darren’s other arm.
Upstairs, Darren refused to take any more blood from them and said he just needed rest. She and Phillip were about to leave when he called out.
“Please don’t,” he said, sounding ever so weary. “Don’t leave me.”
Roxanna moved back toward the bed, but Phillip stood still.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked.
“No. Please stay. Both of you. I was so afraid you were both about to die and there was nothing I could do to protect you. Stay.”
Disrobing to various degrees, Roxanna and Phillip both joined Darren, Phillip curling around her and putting his hand over hers where it rested on an unmarred spot on Darren’s chest. Darren put his hand on top before drifting into sleep.
***
She didn’t know what time it was when Darren roused her, but the dim glow in the room told her it must be well into the morning. Darren’s room never got any brighter than dim.
“We may have a problem,” he told her.
She turned to see that Phillip was no longer with them.
“He didn’t say anything?”
Darren shook his head. “I didn’t know he’d gone.”
“Aren’t vampires supposed to have super hearing or something?”
He smiled down at her. “I was tired.”
“You don’t seem to think he left just to keep up appearances with his mother,” she noted.
<
br /> “I’m thinking for some reason he’s not fully convinced he belongs with us.”
“Well, how do we convince him?”
Darren shook his head. “I’m not sure we can. He has to figure this out for himself.” Frowning, he continued, “as long as he doesn’t take too long.”
***
Absent any brilliant ideas of what to do about Phillip, Roxanna breakfasted on warm oatmeal with apples and read through the newspapers Harris had been sent to collect for her. Darren and Andrew sat on opposite sides of her at his dining table, though she could see less of Andrew over the stack of back issues of The Herald, The Times, and numerous issues of all the business papers Harris could round up. To her relief, Andrew was still looking very solid.
“Ooh, here’s one,” she said, stopping her finger part way down the stock pages. “Merck. That’s a drug company, right?”
“That’s right,” Darren confirmed.
“Well, they’re still around.”
Darren added it to the list he was keeping. Two lists, actually—one of companies that still existed in the twenty-first century in which they might buy stock and another of banks that were still around.
The stock pages provided a few further leads, but the news and ad sections were the most helpful—yielding up DuPont, Jim Beam, Bank of New York, Lloyd’s of London, and Citigroup.
“That should do it,” she said. “Now we just need stock certificates.”
“If the banks you’ve named are still in business, the money from the sale of the house and estate should be waiting for you,” Andrew noted.
She shrugged. “Hopefully. But those accounts will go untouched for several lifetimes. If they’re still there, we’ll need a few forged death and birth certificates to claim them.”
“I can take care of that,” Darren said. “I have a solicitor who’s accustomed to creating long-lasting trusts for my supposed heirs.”
“And everything else we’ll turn into metals or stocks, so you can take it with you,” Andrew added. “Oh, and what about jewels?”
Roxanna laughed. “Well, there’s no shortage of places to hock things in Vegas. A few antique diamond necklaces would set us up with spending money pretty quickly.”
“Alright,” Darren said. “It seems we have a plan, which is a relief, as I’ve gotten rather used to my lifestyle. I don’t want to be poor in our new future.”
Roxanna rolled her eyes. “Heaven forbid.”
***
Phillip knocked on Diana’s door, and her maid opened it.
“Christine, can you give us a moment?” he asked.
The young woman curtsied and scurried down the hall and down the stairs.
Shutting the door behind him, Diana’s reflection looked at him from her dressing table mirror. She picked up her brush and continued where he assumed her maid had left off, taming her hair into long, black waves.
“You look troubled,” she said.
“I need to tell you something. Something impossible.”
She put the brush down and turned around, leaning her arm on the back of the chair. “Nothing’s impossible, dear brother. Just look at me. I’m going to be a duchess. Hartley’s duchess.”
“Yes, well,” he said. “Impossible as that does still seem, it’s not why I’m here.”
“It has something to do with the singer?” she asked.
“Roxanna. Yes.”
“You’re going to do something terribly rash and absolutely shockingly out of character?”
Some of the tension left his shoulders. “You could say that, yes.”
“Then I’m on your side completely.”
“You are?”
“You deserve to be out of character, my sterling brother. And if she makes you happy...” She smiled at him. “Then I’m happy.”
“She does,” Phillip replied. “She makes me...deliriously happy.”
“Then why don’t you look it?”
“Because I’m going away.”
“Ah. For how long?”
“Forever.”
Her brows shot up. “What do you mean ‘forever’?”
“I’m going home with Roxanna. To her home.”
“And you think you can’t write or visit? Why ever not?” she demanded.
“You won’t believe me,” he said. “I still can’t believe it, but it’s true. I swear. I’m only telling you this, frankly, because I can’t bear the thought of you thinking I’m dead.”
She eyed him speculatively. “And why would I think that?”
“Because we’re going to disappear. And that will be that. No visits, no letters. And when we get to where we’re going, you’ll have long since been...well, dead yourself.” He gave a wan smile. “Hopefully, you’ll have a dynasty of descendants.”
Her mouth had dropped open while he spoke. “Are you trying to tell me, Phillip Branham, that you’re going to...to the future?”
He nodded and winced when Diana stood and put her hands on her hips. That never signaled anything good.
“You impossible, impossible, man,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re sneaking off to America or wherever with Roxanna. Please, enjoy yourself. Make a new life. But don’t be a complete ass.”
“Have I ever been a complete ass to you?” he asked. “Okay—within the last five years?”
Her frown eased but didn’t disappear completely. “I suppose not.”
“Then don’t doubt me now. Or do doubt me. I don’t care. Just know I’m safe and I’m happy—and don’t be mad when I don’t write.”
She stared at him. “How has she gotten you to believe this?”
“You don’t know her as I do.”
“No.”
“Ask Hartley what he thinks,” he said. “Don’t tell him anything, but ask him if he thinks it’s so far-fetched that Roxanna could be from the future. If you ask him in jest, you should get an honest answer.”
“When are you going?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Soon.”
She shrugged. “Then you’d better pack. And what am I supposed to tell Mother?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I’ve thought about it, but there’s nothing to say. Her son will just disappear, perhaps rumored to have run off with a singer. She won’t grieve too much if she hears that.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“I just don’t have any other choice. I don’t like what any of this means, but...” He sighed. “I can’t live without her, Di. I don’t want to live without her, and, for once, I’m going to do what I want.”
She came to hug him. “Then, if this is goodbye, safe travels, dear brother. May love and your new life be kind to you.”
“Thank you.”
“I still don’t believe you,” she said when she pulled away.
“Maybe you will one day. Maybe one day it won’t seem so impossible. I don’t know.” He smiled down at her. “At the worst, you’ll have a story to tell my nieces and nephews about their lovelorn time-traveling uncle.”
“I’ll do that,” she promised. “Though where...I guess when...should I tell them he’s traveled to?”
“The twenty-first century,” he said. “Two hundred years from now, give or take.”
“Imagine...” she said. “If it were truly possible—the things you would see.”
“I intend to.”
She hugged him again, more fiercely this time.
“There’s one other thing,” he said, backing out of her embrace.
“There’s more?”
“Yes. Don’t be surprised when Highmore disappears as well.”
She just looked at him.
“It will be all three of us,” he said, hoping not to have to explain in any more detail.
“I see,” she said. “No, actually, I’m not sure I do. Are you saying –”
He nodded.
“Are you sure about this?”
“I am. I know it’s not...well, usual. But somehow, it works. It works for all of us.”
>
She looked at him for a long moment and then smiled. “You’ll understand if I leave that part out of the story to your nieces and nephews, at least until they’re older? Much older.”
He felt his heart lighten.
“I wish you well, dear brother.”
He hugged her again. “Thank you,” he said. “For always understanding—and knowing just what to say. Hartley isn’t worthy of you.”
She looked up at him with a grin. “I’ll keep reminding him.”
“I’m sure you will. Goodbye, Diana.”
After that, he packed a few things and hired a carriage to Darren’s.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Las Vegas, present day
The three of them stood staring at the interior of her apartment, and Roxanna knew that to their eyes, it must look even shabbier than it seemed to her.
“This won’t do at all,” Darren pronounced.
“I did warn you it wasn’t much,” she said in her defense.
“No wonder you weren’t sorry I pulled you back in time.”
“Oh, come on, Darren,” Phillip put in. “It’s kind of...cozy.”
“It’s disgusting.”
“Now wait a minute–”
Darren held up a hand. “You said we should be worth a fortune here. Where do people with fortunes live?”
Roxanna shrugged. “Malibu? Beverly Hills? New York?”
“Which one would you prefer?”
Roxanna pondered it a moment. “Malibu,” she said finally. “And New York. You should have fortune enough for a house on the beach and one in the city.”
“The beach?” Darren and Phillip asked at once.
“Yeah. Malibu is on the water. We can get a house on the ocean.”
“Great,” Darren muttered. “Sun, sand, and I’m sure you’ll want lots of windows.”
Roxanna’s face fell. “Oh. I didn’t think of that.”
“I would like to see the Pacific,” Phillip said.
Darren looked between them. “Oh, fine. As long as they allow night swimming and we can get lots of curtains...You two can have your house on the beach.”
“And we’ll have the place in New York,” Roxanna said. “You’ll love it there. They call it ‘The City That Never Sleeps’.”
***
Leaving Darren and Phillip at her apartment, after making sure all the curtains were closed, Roxanna’s first task was to take care of their immediate financial needs. When the sum turned out to be an amount that would previously have been closer to her annual financial needs, she decided to splurge on a hotel on the Strip, and booked them a penthouse suite at the Wynn.