Kiss Across Chains

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Brody clamped his hands around Marit’s waist to keep her still and studied Alexander. “Your science and your faith have worked together well enough for nine centuries. Why now?”

  Alexander looked at Brody, then his gaze skittered away. “There are things I have come to want from life that I cannot see working with either of them.”

  “You are in a pickle,” Veris said softly. “Time to choose.”

  Alexander gazed at him steadily. “It is not so easy to put aside a lifetime’s prejudice and learning. You know that.”

  Veris sat back, sliding on the mirrored Ray Bans he favored. “I know,” he agreed.

  Taylor shifted the conversation to the first innocuous subject she could come up with. She’d had enough of heart-rendering examinations for now. She kept the conversation light and insubstantial for the rest of the flight to Vegas. Las Vegas itself was enough to keep everyone neatly distracted after that.

  Marit kept her nose pressed against the glass and Mia, who had never been to the city before, was just as interested in the passing parade of people, lights, casinos and displays.

  Brody and Veris had seen and done Vegas too many times to count and even Alexander seemed uninterested in the view. They kept their thoughts to themselves.

  As they got closer and closer to the strip and Taylor spotted the rear of the Bellagio, she scratched at her thumbnail again, gnawing mentally over the events since they had arrived back home. “How good is that hacker friend of yours, Veris?” she asked.

  “Now you ask?” he said, his mouth lifting in a smile. He picked up her hand. “Relax, the information is good. I wouldn’t have let you drag us all here on a simple hint. If she says the council is meeting here, they’re here.”

  The council—the governing body for vampire authorities across America, which included every self-styled king, queen, sheriff, mayor, lord, or title-less dictator who controlled a territory in the continental northern and southern Americas—held their authority by a combination of cooperation, fear, secrecy and intimidation.

  Vampires found it useful to have a uniting body to help pool and pass along information and resources and the council worked as a preservation mechanism; it helped control the excesses of its members for the good of them all. But in order to maintain their authority over what was essentially a group of immortal control freaks, the council members tended to maintain their anonymity, using representatives to intimidate and strike fear into their members.

  It had worked well for several centuries although Taylor considered their tactics borderline abusive. Their heavy hand had caused the queen to come after her family and Brody in particular. A more delicate demand for information would not have created this near-disaster for them.

  As the limousine sat at the lights on Flamingo and the strip, waiting to turn onto the strip itself, she reconsidered her strategy once again. They were a mere minute or two away from turning into the Bellagio’s big entrance drive that curved up alongside the famous fountains.

  Brody had been incensed over her idea. “Confront the council? Are you fucking nuts, Taylor? No one just talks to the council! No one. It’s like…me thumping on the Queen of England’s bed chamber and flopping down on her sofa for a quick chat. They’ll crucify you.”

  “Didn’t someone do just that, once? Walk into the Queen’s bedroom and chat with her?” Taylor asked.

  Brody threw up his hands. “Veris, for Christ’s sake, you know how the politics work better than I do. You explain it to her.”

  Veris leaned forward, rubbing his chin, his eyes narrowed. “It might work,” he said thoughtfully.

  Brody choked in disbelief. “If you can even find them,” he said. “No one knows who is on the council. No one knows where they meet, when they meet. It’s all hush-hush spook stuff because too many people want to do exactly what you’re trying to do—an end run around your top dog.”

  Alexander laughed. “I love listening to you guys. That was a British espionage euphemism, mixed up with a U.S. sports analogy and an animal hierarchy reference. You don’t stint when you mix your metaphors, do you?”

  “You can see why I keep adding to my history degrees, can’t you?” Taylor told him. “It’s the only way I can keep up.” She picked up her tomato juice. “Veris thinks it’ll work.”

  “I know someone,” Veris said.

  “Of course you do,” Brody said and threw himself onto the sofa next to Marit and Mia.

  Mia cleared her throat. “I know it’s not my place and all, but it seems to me that if the queen has it in for you and there’s a higher authority, you appeal to the higher authority. The queen isn’t being reasonable and there’s no one else around to whack her upside the head.”

  “Exactly my point,” Taylor said. “Thank you, Mia. You wouldn’t get someone behaving like the queen in human society, because there’s too many checks and balances. Someone like Tira would be accountable to too many people. The council is leaning on her and she is trying to squash us flat in turn because she doesn’t like it. She couldn’t get away with that in a human-equivalent structure.”

  Brody crossed his arms in an eerie shadowing of Veris. “Wanna bet?” he said.

  “Hitler in the 1930’s,” Veris said, “is almost a perfect example of a human getting even for imagined slights. History is filled with others, but I won’t insult your profession, Taylor.” He stood up. “Your idea is sound. It is the execution that needs to be flawless. I know someone…they were busted for hacking into the university exam server.”

  “Wow,” Mia breathed.

  “They were caught,” Taylor pointed out. “How good are they?”

  “She was sold out by a bitter ex-girlfriend,” Veris corrected, “Or she would have got away with it stone-cold. She’s that good. I’ll get her on to it.”

  “On to what?” Alexander said, saving Taylor from having to ask the same question.

  Veris shrugged. “Hacking into Tira’s computers. We’ll start there and follow any electronic trail that leads us to the council. Someone reached out to her to smack her around about time travelling. There’ll be a trail. We’ll find it and follow it back.” He glanced at Brody. “That video copy of Tira’s men planting the stash on your coach. It may come in useful sooner than I thought. We should pick it up.”

  Taylor stood up. “We should all prepare to face the council in every way we can.”

  It had only taken Veris’ hacker friend a mere six hours to find the location and time of the next council meeting and one hour of that time had been taken up with dickering over the price. The hacker, a blonde with black roots, driver’s gloves, a mini skirt with purple blotches and green tights, had delivered the information in person on a slip of paper and waited for her check, while Taylor read the slip: A private boardroom on the third floor of the Bellagio, Thursday, starting at noon.

  “We’re on,” Taylor announced.

  “I’ll book the jet,” Veris said, kissing her as he shut the door.

  Brody scowled.

  * * * * *

  The Bellagio was busy despite the day of the week, the tourist low season and the time of the day. It cascaded tourists, customers, gamblers and yet more people out onto the wide portico in a steady steam. Just as many people entered the grand hotel through the swing doors and revolving doors.

  Inside, the noise spiraled up toward the jeweled and decorated ceiling. The lobby was filled with people moving in all directions.

  Brody lifted Marit up into his arms. “Elevators are over that way.” He pointed.

  “Our kind are everywhere,” Veris murmured, his hand on Taylor’s back. “Watching.”

  She nodded. “Good. Our arrival won’t be a surprise, then.”

  They snagged an empty elevator and got off on the third floor. There were considerably less people on this level although it was still clearly a public area, for the passage was wide and the ceiling high. Function rooms lined the corridor and public congregation areas broke up the long stretches of blank wall
s and doors.

  “That one down there,” Alexander said, nodding. “It’s the only room with guards.”

  The two guards were on either side of the doors and they looked like vacation coordinators, with crewneck sweaters in pastels and casual trousers. One of them wore cargo pants. But their motionless, alert stance on either side of the door gave them away.

  “Problem?” Taylor asked, looking at Veris.

  Veris rolled his eyes. It was all the answer he gave her.

  “Sorry,” she told him.

  Mia, who was ahead of all of them, glanced back. “Can I try something, first?”

  “You?” Brody asked.

  She grinned, pulling the ties out of her hair. “Watch.” Her walk turned into a sway, her hips swinging engagingly.

  “Oh, wow,” Brody breathed. “Those poor suckers.”

  Mia’s hair flowed over her shoulders and behind her like a siren song as she sashayed up to the guards. Everyone else slowed down.

  “Well, hi there,” they heard her say, in a low, sultry voice. “We’re looking for the way back to the lobby, see…” Her voice got lower and her head got closer. The guard leaned forward to catch what she was saying…and look down her shirt.

  While he was looking, she snapped out her foot toward the other guard. She did it from a standing start. She didn’t telegraph her move by swaying sideways or even glancing at him, until her foot connected. Then she leaned sideways and drove the heel of her foot up under his chin. It snapped his head back, lifted him up off his feet and would have dropped him to the floor, but Alexander was abruptly there to catch him and lower him to the ground.

  Mia wasn’t fast enough for the second one, but Veris clubbed him and lowered him to the ground before he could grab her.

  Alexander felt for the pulse of the one Mia had kicked. “I think you broke his neck.”

  “Pay back for what they did to Marit’s daddies. Now maybe she’ll sleep better at night. Hey, honey?” Mia turned to Marit and took her from Brody’s arms. Marit stared down at the two fallen guards with an interested expression.

  “He’ll heal,” Alexander declared and pulled a syringe from inside his jacket and removed the cap.

  “What the fuck, doctor?” Veris asked as he injected the two guards.

  “It’s a special blend of sedative I’ve been researching. It actually works on vampires,” Alexander said, straightening up. “It would probably kill a human, but they’ll be out for the next four hours.” He put his hand on the handle of the conference room door. “Shall we?”

  Veris put his hand on the other handle and nodded.

  Taylor took a deep breath and took Brody’s hand.

  The pair of them opened the doors and they all filed in.

  * * * * *

  Only one man sat at the head of the long boardroom table, which was completely empty and gleamed with polish under the overhead lights. The same lights shone directly upon the man, distorting his features enough with downcast shadows that it was hard to see his face properly.

  He was dark haired and the hair hung just past his collar, hanging in loose curls. That was all Taylor could make of him despite squinting.

  “It’s about time,” he said, placing his hands flat on the table.

  Veris halted and studied the man a little harder. Then he muttered in Norse. “Fuck,” he added and crossed his arms. “I’m out two thousand dollars in hacker’s fees, thanks to you, Rafael. You couldn’t have just called?”

  Brody stalked to the head of the table. “Are you council or their lackey?” he demanded. “Are you the one we have to thank for all this crap raining down on us?”

  Rafael stood and the strong down light shifted away from his face. Taylor caught her breath. Now she could see what Brody and Veris had been able to see past. It was Rafael, but an older version. He was perhaps ten years older in biological years than the man she had met in Constantinople. His body had filled out and matured in those years. He had shoulders as wide as Brody’s and he was nearly as tall.

  There was an air of mastery and control about him that had been missing in Constantinople. He had shrugged off the habits and mindset he had acquired as a slave and his years of slavery had not left the same mental scars as Brody’s.

  Rafael rested his hand on Brody’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter which role I play. As far as the council is concerned, I speak for them.” He waved along the length of the table. “Will you sit down? We can sort out your troubles once and for all. That is why you are here, isn’t it?”

  Veris crossed his arms. “If that is why we’re here, we’re short a person.”

  Rafael smiled, his toffee-brown eyes lighting up with good cheer. Taylor remembered that smile from when he had been sitting listening to them telling him about the future, during the racing at the Hippodrome. She’d had the sensation he’d been brewing mischief then, too, but it had seemed so wildly unlikely that a man so fresh out of slave bands would have the mental wherewithal to build a plan that would get around Veris, who was not exactly stupid, had eyes in the back of his head and not just a sixth sense to go with his vampire senses, but a seventh, eighth and ninth one for luck.

  But Rafael had out-flanked both of them, Brody and Veris had said, although there had been no time for them to elaborate on that.

  Rafael gave the same disarming grin now. “The last participant. Right. I anticipated just a smidgen. I hope you don’t mind.” He strode across the vast room, which was empty except for the eight of them and opened a small service door on the back wall.

  Two more vacation guards stepped through. They had a hand each on Tira’s arms and walked her over to the boardroom table, despite her trying to wrench her arms out of their grip.

  Taylor blinked at her appearance, for Tira was wearing yoga pants, a wrinkled tee-shirt and no shoes. She looked like she was wearing very little make-up, or perhaps none at all, for her eyes were pale and washed out. Her hair was springy and wild.

  She looked like she had been pulled out of bed or somewhere equally as private and tossed without pause into a waiting vehicle to deliver her here.

  Rafael pulled out a chair for her. “Sit,” he told her, all pleasantness gone from his voice.

  “This is outrageous,” she began.

  Rafael held up his forefinger. That was all.

  Tira took a deep breath, swallowing anything else she might say, but her eyes narrowed.

  “Tira has agreed to hear you out,” Rafael explained, sitting next to her and pulling his chair up to the table.

  Veris laughed shortly.

  Brody pulled out a chair opposite her. “Will she get the charges against me dropped?”

  “They’re public charges,” Rafael pointed out. “But I can do something about that for you.”

  “Who are you right now?” Taylor asked carefully. The question sometimes offended vampires, who were sensitive about having to pass as humans in the first place.

  “Rayner DeLeon.”

  “The Federal Appeals Court judge?” Brody asked. “How old are you passing yourself off as?”

  “The youngest judge in history,” Alexander murmured.

  Rafael raised a brow. “I do pro bono on interesting cases. Yours is an interesting case, Brody.”

  “Is it?” Brody stared at him. “What did you have to do with this in the first place, Rafael? Cards up. You know what happened in Constantinople. I’m so far beyond being cute now. I want truth. Let’s cut to it.”

  “Constantinople?” Tira repeated, bewildered. “You…know each other?”

  “Knew,” Taylor said. “On my personal timeline, I just met him. I thought he had remained human and withered, back in the fifth century.”

  Tira rose to her feet. “Wait…wait…are you telling me that the reason my men couldn’t find any of you, that you haven’t been seen in public for over a week is because you went back in time?”

  Then she pivoted to face Rafael, her mouth open as she put it together. “You knew!” she accu
sed him. “You knew all along! You knew time travel was a fact, that they were accomplished travelers…you had already met them in the past!”

  Rafael leaned back in his chair. “And you played the puppet for me so nicely, Tira. Thank you.”

  Her face grew stormy.

  “Sit down and shut up,” Rafael told her.

  She hesitated.

  “Now,” he added without any undue emphasis.

  Tira sank back into her chair.

  “If you behave yourself, I will let you stay in this room to hear the remainder of this meeting,” he told her. “Otherwise, I’ll toss you out onto the strip, to fend for yourself and find your own way back to L.A. Your call, sweetheart.”

  She drew in a breath that made her nostrils flare and her cheeks to suck in. “I’ll stay,” she told him.

  Rafael smiled winningly at her. “I thought you might.” He swiveled his chair to face Brody. “I owe you an apology, Braenden.”

  Brody blinked. “For what?”

  “The night you jumped back here from Constantinople. Veris said keep you two separated and I did, but not the way he suggested. I indulged in some petty vengeance in exchange for feeding from me the way you did that first time.”

  Taylor sucked in a breath and turned to Mia, who was holding Marit on her lap. Marit was frowning, puzzled, as she tried to work her way through the implications of Rafael’s conversation. “Mia….”

  Mia stood up, bringing Marit up onto her hip. “Lunchtime,” she declared. “I’m going to go find a restaurant with a kid’s menu in the lobby somewhere. Text me when you’re done, ‘kay?” She looked down at Marit. “How about a milkshake, kiddo?”

  Marit nodded.

  Mia gave everyone a bright smile and left.

  Rafael pushed a hand through his hair. “Sorry,” he said, to Taylor. “I’m not used to kids being about.”

  “Especially smart ones,” Taylor added. She threaded her fingers together. “I think it’s time you both reviewed your memories. What happened back then? Brody, you first.”

  Brody blew out his breath. “I fell asleep one night a slave and I woke up… I thought I woke up, on a bed in Rafael’s house in Galata. He told me I had died and now I was a vampire. That’s the short version. He had to…” Brody shook his head. “Damn, you were cool as a cucumber, Rafael.” He looked around the table. “He told me he had a business trip to Pergamum for a few days with a fellow traveler, but when he got back, he and I would talk about my future, the two of us, ex-slaves. I just now realized…the fellow traveler was Veris.”