Authors: Tracy Cooper-Posey
“There are dozens of people and vampires here. Pritti lives here...well, sometimes. They are all part of the Agency or work for the Agency. That means none of them is stupid. Give one of them the keys.”
Mariana shook her head. “It has to be you. Once I’m gone, you will be the most senior agency member here.”
“I’m not a member. I just work for them. And what do you mean by ‘senior’? Are you checking up on everyone’s birthday?”
Mariana smiled. “I have no wish to find out when people were really born. You have cured me of that curiosity. I meant senior, as in you work directly with the heads of the Agency and their most senior personnel. You understand the concerns of the leaders. No one else here has that sort of access.”
“Even
I
don’t have that sort of access,” Deonne shot back, her temper stirring. “They’ve got me stranded back here and useless.”
Mariana tilted her head. “It’s better than being smeared into jelly by a g-train, isn’t it?”
Deonne shuddered.
“That’s the reason we’re all back here. To save our lives.” Mariana got to her feet. “And it’s working.”
Deonne glared at the bunch of keys. “I don’t have to do a lot of admin crap, do I?”
“I’ve left full instructions on the server. The file has your name on it.” Mariana moved toward the door, then turned to face Deonne once more. “You know, you should really try to see your time here in China as a respite.”
“What good is a vacation if the people you want to spend it with aren’t there?” Deonne groused.
“They’re working to bring us home as fast as possible.”
“They’re fighting a war, Mariana. Wars don’t end quickly.” Deonne pushed at the keys. “How well do you know the senior people at the agency?”
“I don’t know Justin very much at all. He was always at the Sydney branch when I was on the station.”
Deonne pinned Mariana with a glare. “How long have you known about Justin and me?”
Mariana shrugged. “Since before we were shipped here.”
“You didn’t mention it on your nets, did you?”
Mariana raised a brow. “We were under the secrecy injunction Ryan put on everyone in that meeting. I don’t talk about the Agency to anyone who wasn’t in that room. It’s another reason you must take charge of matters here.”
“I’ll be the only one here that was in that meeting.” Deonne sighed. “Why are matters so complicated when vampires get mixed up in them?”
“It’s because they live so long, I imagine,” Mariana replied unexpectedly. “Their relationships grow complicated and intricate because they have such a long time to develop.”
“You watch them a lot, don’t you?”
“I like them.” Mariana shrugged again. “They’re different.”
“They are that,” Deonne agreed. “You said that Stelios was Ryan’s and Nayara’s lover. You didn’t mean he was running concurrent affairs, did you?”
Mariana looked down at her hands. “They’re all together,” she said.
“A ménage,” Deonne concluded. “Just like Ryan, Nayara and Salathiel.”
Mariana’s head jerked up and surprise flittered across her features.
“I read the book,” Deonne told her. “I wanted to know what was being published before it was released. You did a good job.”
“Oh, I just did the first draft. There were a dozen editors who came along behind me and cleaned it all up.” Mariana gave a self-conscious laugh.
“Don’t denigrate yourself like that. People believe you when you do.”
Mariana’s smile faded.
“There’s Rob, Christian and Tally, too,” Deonne remarked. “That’s three ménages that I know about. Is it a vampire thing?”
The other woman frowned. “I think so. I’ve never heard of long term ménages among humans. Humans have group casual sex, but not permanent bonds like the vampires seem to form.”
“That’s not the only way they form relationships, though,” Deonne murmured, thinking of her relationship with Justin.
“I think Justin is too in love with you to look at someone else, too,” Mariana replied.
Deonne felt her cheeks heat and hated it, but even as she blushed, her heart lurched as she thought of Justin. “You
do
watch closely, don’t you?”
Mariana gave the same small shrug. “Vampires aren’t into sharing. Watching them is the only way to learn about them.”
“You learn by listening, too. They talk occasionally, but it’s hints. Allusions.” Deonne sighed. “References to people and events from long ago. You can build a detailed picture if you listen long enough.”
Mariana pursed her lips.
“What?” Deonne demanded. “Something you heard? What?”
She shook her head. “Maybe you should ask Justin.”
“How can I ask if I don’t know what I’m asking?”
Mariana glanced around the room, like she was looking for the exit.
“You’ve said too much now,” Deonne told her. “You need to tell me the rest. It’s something about Justin’s past that you’ve heard, isn’t it?”
The woman shifted on her feet, discomfort radiating from every stiff angle. “Before Ryan and Nayara reunited, before Assemblyman Stelios joined them, their relationship was…strained.”
“I read the book,” Deonne reminded her impatiently. “Nayara buried herself in work, and while Ryan worked, he also fucked everything in sight—” She caught her breath as it fell together. “Justin and Ryan?” she asked Mariana.
Mariana nodded slowly. “When the agency was first formed. Justin is one of the original members.”
Deonne sank down onto the end of her bed, which was the seating closest to her. “I really don’t know him at all,” she murmured. “Every time I think I have him figured out, the pattern shifts and I have to start all over again.”
“I’m told that’s common with vampires,” Mariana said softly. “They compartmentalize their lives. They’re really only immersed in the last twenty years or so. The rest of it they pack away tight. I think that’s why personal questions are considered so rude.”
Deonne picked up the keys. “I guess I have work to do.”
“The server and terminal are keyed to your voice print,” Mariana told her. She opened the apartment door to step out and gave a little gasp and fell back.
Justin stood in the doorway, his hand raised as if he had been just about to knock.
Justin. Here in China. Deonne found herself on her feet without consciously being aware of standing.
“Where is he?” Justin demanded, his voice low and tight with anger. His eyes blazed with fury. “Where is the fucker? I’ll kill him.”
* * * * *
The Agency Home Base – 2264 A.D.:
Nayara lifted her head, alerted, as Brenden stormed over to her table. Other heads were lifting, too.
Demyan trailed after Brenden, his demeanor calm and contained.
Brenden reached her table and flung his arm out toward Demyan, pointing at him. “This…this imbecile took him back to China!”
“Took who?” Nayara asked curiously.
“Justin!”
“Justin? What on earth moved Justin to jump back in time…?” She frowned. “Has something happened to Deonne?”
“No!” Brenden cried, then he frowned. “Maybe,” he qualified. “We’re still figuring that out.”
Nayara stood up. “You’d better give me the whole story,” she suggested.
Brenden opened up his mouth to speak, but she lifted her finger, halting him before he could utter a single furious word.
“Demyan first,” she said.
Brenden scowled while Demyan, standing behind him, grinned.
* * * * *
Liping Village, East Yunnan Province, China, 2054 A.D.:
Mariana slid around Justin with a muttered apology. He heard the door shut behind him, but didn’t care. The world could hear this, as far as he was concerned.
Deonne came toward him. “You’re here. You’re actually here.” She was smiling, with happiness radiating her features. “You’re wearing all the wrong clothes for here, but we can fix that.”
She reached for him but Justin stepped back, out of her arms. “You’re going to play the ignorance card?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Where is Santiago?”
“Who?” Her face registered puzzlement. There was no furtiveness there at all.
“The asshole you’re leaving me for. Where is he?”
Her puzzlement turned to fully fledged shock. Even her luscious lips parted as air pushed from her lungs in a gasp. “Leave you?” she repeated, her voice hoarse. “I have no intention of leaving you.”
Justin pulled the letter from an inner pocket and threw it onto the desk next to her hip. “You already did.”
* * * * *
The Agency Home Base – 2264 A.D. :
“It’s bad,” Nayara agreed, “but I don’t think it’s quite as dire as you feel it is, Brenden.”
“Of course it’s dire!” Brenden lifted his foot and rested it on the bench in front of Nayara’s table. He crossed his arms, the muscles in his forearms and his biceps growing taut and rounder. “He has no idea what he’s doing back there. And this stupid git left him there!” He jerked his head toward Demyan.
“He’s only going to confront Deonne about the letter. He’s not going to speak to heads of government,” Nayara qualified.
“Tell her,” Brenden growled, glancing at Demyan.
Demyan had stood unmoving throughout Brenden’s tirade. Now he settled himself on the table in front of Nayara’s and put his boots on the bench beneath. “I followed the parallel time protocol we’ve been using for the folk in China.”
“So you went back to the time three days after Deonne left Sweden, as that was three days ago,” Nayara concluded.
“As best as we can narrow it down, the blanket bomb that goosed Justin into jumping is two weeks ahead of that time,” Brenden growled. “At the end of the month, not the middle, where he is.”
Nayara frowned. “We don’t know when she wrote the letter. It could be today in their time or it could be next year in their time.” She looked up at Demyan, who sat unmoving and unrepentant, then at Brenden, who was nodding in agreement.
“This is a mess,” Nayara said.
“Now you see it,” Brenden told her.
* * * * *
Liping Village, East Yunnan Province, China, 2054 A.D.:
Deonne read the letter carefully and damn if her face didn’t grow pale. Her hands trembled as she held the letter, making the letter itself shake. She looked up at Justin. “This is my hand writing. It’s even phrases I would use but I didn’t write this. You have to believe me!”
Justin stared at her, wondering why she was trying such an obvious bluff. Then it occurred to him.
She hadn’t written it yet
.
“Oh fuck…” he breathed, horror washing over him.
Deonne stared at him with big eyes.
He sank down onto the end of the bed, trying to think it through, to guess at unknowable factors. There were too many horrible potential outcomes to even begin to figure out a way out of this.
“Justin?” Deonne asked, prompting him.
He looked up at her. “You didn’t write the letter,” he agreed. “But you will. I jumped too far back. Now…I have no idea what will happen. This is the sort of puzzle Brenden’s people figure out.”
She let go of one end of the letter and allowed it to fold up again, watching him. “This is from my future?” she asked, lifting it up.
Justin nodded.
“Who is Santiago?” she asked.
He laughed dryly. “I have no idea. This letter was a bolt from the blue.”
“You didn’t research him before you jumped here?”
“I was too busy panicking,” he told her.
Deonne dropped the letter onto the desk and sat on the bed next to him. “It has to be someone I’m going to meet. Someone in my future.” Her hand fell onto his thigh. “But now I’ve been warned, right? So I don’t write the letter, and I avoid this Santiago man when I do meet him.” Her fingers pressed into his flesh for emphasis. “If I even meet him, now. You jumping here and telling me about the letter has changed things, hasn’t it? Isn’t that how it works?”
Justin nodded. “Except, how much have things changed and have I made it worse?” He scrubbed at his hair. “Fuck, I can’t even begin to sort it out!”
Deonne shifted on the mattress so that she was facing him and wound her arms about his neck. “You came for me,” she murmured. Her expression was soft and warm…and lethal. Justin found himself reaching for her, and pulling her closer. The truth was beating at his chest and his mind, screaming to get out.
“It wasn’t just the letter,” he said, then mentally swore at himself.
“Something else? What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”
One of the key principles of his basic traveler training, that they had drilled into him over and over was that telling anyone about their own future was a sure way to set up ripples, or even waves that would roar through time and make changes at critical decision points, altering the future and possibly jeopardizing your own existence.
Salathiel had gone back to Constantinople and created a time tsunami that had disintegrated the future almost completely until Nayara and Ryan had jumped back to where he was and neutralized the damage he had caused. Even then, there had been changes to their contemporary time period, although these had not been anything close to the lethal quality of Salathiel’s changes.
As a result of that near disaster, the Chronometric Conservation Agency had been formed to ensure that nothing like that ever happened again.
Just being back in the past was a risk, but telling someone their own future, which gave them the option of changing it, was a sure way of switching that risk to a certainty.
Justin recalled the descriptions he had read about the blanket bombing of this idyllic little village. Fear enveloped him once more.
He opened his mouth to speak, as Deonne sat patiently waiting for him to reply. Then he reconsidered the wisdom of giving her the truth.
Then he remembered that there had been survivors recorded in the reports and the words were suddenly emerging from his mouth, spilling out without his consent.
“Somewhere ahead of here – I don’t know when, because the reports are inaccurate – but sometime not long from now, this entire village is destroyed. Wiped clean of anything with flesh and DNA.”