Romani Armada (27 page)

As she walked, she tried to figure out what she should do but the fear seemed to gum up her brain.

She couldn’t call out to Justin. He had time jumped less often than she and was happy to admit he knew close to nothing about time conservation. He would not be able to help her as he would want to.

Nayara
. Nayara had resolved the time wave that had delivered Constantine’s Curse upon the world and threatened to end it. If anyone would know how to fix this, she might.

Deonne changed her direction, heading back toward the compound, but she continued to change roads and routes, trying not to travel along any road she had already used.

When she spotted the compound ahead, its tiles peeking through trees, she edged closer to the trees, until she was looking upon the compound, fifty meters away. She studied it. Was Santiago still there?

Then she heard, far to her right, a faint call. “
Diaaaaanne!
”

He was near the apartments. He had tried hers and found her not there. Now he was combing the woods and calling for her. That meant he wasn’t in the compound.

She sprinted for the compound, thankful that she had swapped her high heels these last few days with a flat and conservative pair of shoes that suited her dour mood. She burst through the green doors into the compound, slammed the doors shut, then lifted the bar and dropped it into the big hooks that held it over the doors. Feeling only a little bit safer, she hurried back into the office, out of breath and still feeling sick.

She dropped into her chair and pulled the keyboard over and began typing.

Nayara…help!

Santiago is here and I don’t know what to do. He knows about time travel! I’m afraid that anything I say or do will create a wave or screw the world over somehow.

He’s looking for me. I have to get out of here.

Deonne.

She opened Mariana’s instruction book and paged through to the communications section. Mariana had explained how to send a message to Nayara if absolutely necessary. The time drop message began by emailing a blind address, and included instructions on the exact date to deliver the message. Her email was automatically date stamped, so Nayara would know precisely when Deonne had sent it, to the second.

Deonne wiped at her eyes, which were damp, and hit “send”.

She sat back, breathing deeply to keep the pathetic tears at bay.

Nayara appeared in the middle of the room, materializing instantaneously. Deonne stared, her mind coupling up facts with what she had just witnessed. She had never seen anyone
arriving
at the end of a jump before. It was remarkable for how ordinary it looked, except for the fact that one moment the floor was empty and the next, Nayara was there, straightening up from her original jump.

“Oh thank god, you’re here,” Deonne said, standing up and wiping hastily at her eyes.

“Your message was very precisely dated,” Nayara told her. She came over to where Deonne was standing, the pale green robe she was wearing floating elegantly behind her. “You timed it well, for my end. It arrived four days after you returned here from Sweden.”

“I will remember that date forever,” Deonne assured her.

Nayara touched her arm gently. “What has happened?” she asked. “Tell me everything.”

* * * * *

Low Earth Orbit, 2264 A.D.:
The low, distinct buzzing of Cáel’s personal communications code woke him from a sleep he wasn’t aware he had fallen into. He pulled out his travelling board and keyed the communication for text only, as he glanced out the window. Earth was a beautiful blue sphere to his right. It was a breath-taking view, but the message needed his attention.

“Where are we?” he asked Kieren, who was checking dials and nudging controls, to fine tune them.

“We’re at the point of apogee. Low earth orbit. In three minutes and twenty-five seconds, we start our re-entry glide and prep for landing.”

Cáel read the text and frowned. “How far could you change course in this thing?” he asked Kieren.

“It’s got some maneuvering thrusters, but using them will massively suck your power.” Kieren grinned. “You probably figure you can afford the refill, but if we run short as we’re landing, we’ll have no brakes. Why do you ask?”

Cáel hefted his board. “The President just called a recess. That gives me an excuse to visit Rome.”

Keiren’s eyes widened. “Assembly was in
session
? You left the Assembly while it was still running?”

“As soon as I had your address,” Cáel confirmed. “But don’t feel too guilty. It was only supposed to be a quick hop there and back – they were reading a ninety-thousand word bill and it was the second reading. It was a good time to slip out.”

Kieren stared at him a moment longer. Then he straightened and turned to look at the controls. “I can get us to Rome,” he said. “As long as you don’t mind a fast and hairy landing. The thrusters are supposed to be for emergencies.”

“It wouldn’t be my first rough re-entry,” Cáel assured him.

Kieren spared a single glance at him. “You have unexpected facets.”

Cáel grinned. “Comes from living so long. You tend to pile on the experiences.”

“Is that why you like vampires?”

Cáel bit back his first surprised reaction, which would have been to shut Kieren down with an imperious demand that he mind his own business. Keiren’s business was his business, now. Information was always useful.

So Cáel gave the questions fair thought. “It might have been what drew my attention to them, long before I met any of them. Now, something a lot stronger holds me here, and it has nothing to do with their longevity.”

Kieren stared out through the screen. “It’s their principals, for me, and their discipline.”

“That was what made me…” Cáel hesitated.

“Love them?” Kieren finished. He glanced at Cáel. “You don’t hide it very well, when you’re with them.”

“So you’ve said.” Cáel scowled.

Kieren grinned and grabbed the manual steering stick. “I’ve got control. If you would punch in the coordinates for a Rome landing strip, I’ll stop this thing from heading to Malacá.”

* * * * *

Liping Village, East Yunnan Province, China, 2054 A.D.:
After Deonne had explained the events of the last two days, Nayara walked restlessly around the small room, thinking. “Where is Santiago now?” Nayara asked.

“Looking for me. I heard him calling, over by my apartment.” She bit her lip. “It won’t take him long to find me. He follows my pheromones.”

Nayara shrugged. “Naturally. He is a hunter, as are we all. Scent is a reliable spore.”

Deonne stared at her, trying to feel appalled or horrified at the casual reference to tracking down humans, but she couldn’t. Her fear had solidified in the middle of her chest and was stealing all her energy. It took effort just to breathe.

“Where is Justin?” Deonne asked. “Why didn’t he come?”

“You sent the letter to me,” Nayara replied, still deep in thought. “I wanted to investigate what could make Deonne Rinaldi panic before bringing another traveler here.” She glanced at Deonne. “The more of us there are, the higher the risk that a time wave will result.”

“I need to leave here,” Deonne said. “I have to get away from him.”

“You can’t return home,” Nayara said. “It is too risky. The psi-filers have you on their hit list.”

“I’m not suggesting I do.” Deonne stood up, too restless to just sit there. “But there is a whole world out there beyond the village. I could get lost in it.”

Nayara paused in her pacing to turn and look at Deonne. “You said he was hunting you. How long do you think it will take him to find where you have gone?”

“If I keep moving—”

“No.” Nayara shook her head. “You cannot.”

Deonne gripped her hands together. She had never had one of the agency members give her a flat, blanket ‘no’ before. It was a novel experience and she wasn’t sure she liked it, but then she had never been a factor in a time crunch, either. This was the sort of knotty, brain twisting problems that Nayara and Ryan and the agency travelers faced every day and each occasion they jumped back in time.

“Is this something to do with my future?” Deonne asked. “Has Brenden researched this already? There are records of my time here?”

Nayara sighed and stopped pacing. She looked at her and Deonne thought she could see pity in Nayara’s gaze. “There are fragments that speak of you….here in the village. There is nothing else.”

“Which means I don’t leave here,” Deonne concluded. She looked out the window. He would be somewhere out there, still, looking for her. Perhaps he had found her trail already. “I want Justin here, then,” she told Nayara. “If I can’t leave, then he can come to me.”

Nayara opened her mouth to speak and Deonne could see the ‘no’ painted on her face, in her expression and posture.

Deonne interrupted before she could speak. “Where is your Tree of Life, Nayara?”

The redheaded woman lifted her hand to her neck, where the Celtic Tree of Life medallion had rested for centuries. Deonne had read about it in the biography she had vetted, but the biography didn’t mention where the medallion was now. “Does Cáel Stelios wear it now?” Deonne asked.

Nayara was very good at dissembling, but Deonne read body language as part of her profession. She saw the tiny widening of Nayara’s eyes and the movement of her fingers against the base of her throat. She had surprised her.

Deonne stepped closer. “The truth can always be found in the details,” she explained.

“You understand how delicate the political situation would be if that fact became common knowledge?” Nayara asked.

“The fact that Stelios wears your medallion, or that you and Ryan and Stelios are lovers?”

Nayara drew in a slow breath. “Either one, let loose among humans, could be used against us.”

“It’s not something I would care to gossip about, anyway,” Deonne told her. “Besides, you have that handy-dandy confidentiality clause in my contract to keep me in line.”

Nayara smiled and the expression was full of warmth and humor. “I don’t think we’ll need it.”

Deonne moved close to Nayara and dropped her voice. “Look at how easily I read the truth about you, Nayara, and I’m only human. Think about how much more truth Santiago is learning from me every time he sees me. I’m not trained for this. I’m not a traveler. You need to get me out of here before Santiago puts it all together and creates some sort of wave all by himself.” She added the kicker. “What if he figures out how to jump through time?”

Nayara actually turned pale. “He cannot be allowed to learn that he can time jump,” she said urgently. “He’s untrained, he has no idea what trouble he can cause.”

“Right,” Deonne agreed. “So
take me out of his reach
. There has to be somewhere else I can go.”

“You can’t. You must stay right here in the village,” Nayara replied. “I know it scares you, but it is the only action available to you. If you leave and go anywhere else, you will be changing the course of time.”

“But, Santiago—”

“You will have to deal with him, Deonne.” Nayara gave her a small smile. “I’ve seen you handle media people and Brenden with his temper roused. You are discretion itself. You’ll just have to use some of those skills to handle Santiago.”

The answer was going to be no, no matter how well she argued, Deonne realized. Nayara was looking at this from her perspective as the Agency’s leader, with whom rested full responsibility for the strict preservation of history and all she could see were the records that showed Deonne remained in the village. Therefore, any suggestion that she leave the village was wasted.

Deonne drew in a breath and let it out. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll stay.” And just to make it look like she really meant it, she added; “But if I stay and Santiago creates a massive tidal wave in time, it’s on you, okay?”

Nayara considered her for a moment. “Very well,” she said slowly. She was frowning.

Had Deonne convinced her?

Nayara straightened, picked the hem of her dress up off the floor in one hand, and waved Deonne back a step or two. “Stay where you should be, Deonne,” she said. “And perhaps I can arrange a surprise for you.”

She spun like a ballet dancer on one foot and halfway through the spin, she leapt…and was gone.

Deonne immediately picked up her personal board from the desk, along with a few other personal items that she shoved into her pockets, and left.

She didn’t look back.

TERCERA PARTE

Chapter Twenty-One

Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2264 A.D.:
It was hard not to be impressed with the new Agency headquarters. Justin wanted the place to match his mood, which was dark and ominous, but the sheer beauty and scale of the development pierced the protective coating of grumpiness he had maintained since leaving Sydney.

Because he had never been to the new headquarters before, and because he was arriving unannounced and lacking formal permission, he had been forced to travel there the long way. He had caught a continental semi-ballistic from Sydney to Istanbul. The g-train to Rome followed the same route as the ancient Oriental Express, but only took four hours, compared to the two days and a night the original steam train had taken.

The station in Rome had been jammed with people, for it was one of the primary junctions in Europe, just as Istanbul was the gateway to Asia and always had been. But local traffic used personal ground cars rather than public transport and Justin had the novel experience of hiring a taxi to take him across the inner city to the new agency location.

The taxi driver had marked him as a newcomer to the city. As they travelled along Lungotevere Tor di Nona, the driver pointed out famous landmarks in decent Common; Vatican City, the beautiful and ancient Pont Sant’Angelo – the bridge that had existed since the time of the Roman Republic, and the Statue of Saint Michael, just across the Tiber River.