Romani Armada (43 page)

There was a broader, flat concrete path that led directly to the river for those who wanted to reach their destination via the more direct river path, instead of the meandering contemplative trails through the woods. That path connected with the one they stood on just inside the clearing.

It was dusk. Deep shadows were billowing from the trees that bordered the clearing, while the sky visible overhead was a dark purple.

There was someone standing on the narrow path that led to Adán’s door. They were slender and short. In the dying light Deonne could not distinguish if they were male or female. They were a dim shape without detail.

Justin held out both arms in a wordless demand that they both halt and stay behind him. “Juris,” he whispered.

It was as if he had shouted. The figure on the path turned to look at him and in the last light, his smile showed white teeth in a flash. “Kelly,” he said, speaking loud enough for his voice to reach them across the space dividing them. “The one that can’t jump. What are you going to do now? You can’t take both of them.”

Can’t jump?
Both of them?
Deonne moved up behind Justin to ask him and saw Juris disappear.

It was exactly like watching one of the vampires leap forward or backward in time. Deonne had watched Nayara do it only a few days ago. Nayara’s jump had been much more elegant. Juris leapt up into the air like he was trying to straddle a hurdle, then was gone.

Justin spun to face them. He threw his arms around them, just as he had done a moment before, but this time the impact drove some breath out of Deonne’s lungs. Justin’s expression was one of distilled concentration. His eyes were narrowed and his jaw tight. “Quickly. Hold onto me,” he commanded, his tone abrupt.

Adán stepped backward. “Take Deonne,” he said.

“No!” Deonne cried, alarmed. If they were going anywhere else, then Adán had to come, too.

The apartment building evaporated behind them. The shock wave travelled instantly to where they stood. Deonne couldn’t see it, but something slammed into her with the force of a g-train.

That was the last thing she thought of.

CUARTA PARTE

Chapter Thirty-Four

The Palatine, Rome, 2264 A.D.:
Demyan jumped straight into the living room of the apartment he’d found them on one of the Seven Hills of Rome. He knew Rome of ancient times, but it was surprising how consistent the roads and major buildings had remained throughout the centuries. He had been able to locate an available apartment in what used to be the Palatine, the area he knew the best.

He looked around the empty room. “Pritti!”

No answer.

He hurried into the bedroom. Pritti lay on the bed with her legs dangling over the edge, as if she had sat on the side, then fallen backwards.

The phone she had been using to speak to him was still in her hand. That was what had bought him straight here – or as straight as the endless business of the Agency would let him. He had jumped directly to the apartment despite every protocol and warning against jumping into an occupied building, because Pritti had fallen silent at the other end of the phone.

In mid-sentence.

Coldness settled in his gut and heart as Demyan lifted her and placed her on the bed properly, then tapped her cheek.

No response.

Her body heat was still normal, so she was still alive, although Demyan couldn’t detected her breathing or pulse. Both had to have been slowed enormously for him not to hear them. He extended his hearing, narrowing it down to her mouth and chest.

After fifteen fear-filled seconds, he heard her heart move.

Demyan sat on the bed next to her and picked up her hand. “Dammit, tell me what to do!” he told her, even though he knew she would not be able to hear him.

He remembered, then, Pritti’s brother, Elon. In Cairo, last year. Despite his stillness, there had been life, of a sort, inside him. He had been aware, at least. Demyan had dipped into his pain ravaged mind and discovered that for himself in one shocked, illness-generating moment.

He cupped Pritti’s small face. Her eyes were open, by the smallest slit. Demyan could see the black iris of her eyes beneath. Just like Elon’s eyes had been.

He shoved his way into her mind with more force than finesse. Fear made him clumsy. If Pritti was aware enough to feel the discomfort from his rough connection, he would be inordinately happy to apologize to her for a week. Or a month, or god-please-listen, a year.

It was not the cyclonic mind-tearing pain storm he had felt from Elon, but it was very dark.

Pritti
?

Demyan!
Her mental voice was a long way off, but he felt her pleasure and her joy bubbling up and showering him with happiness, just as Pritti had once done in person. He mentally beckoned her toward him and felt her presence grow and strengthen.

On the bed, she drew in a deep, slow breath.

Demyan squeezed her hand, hope holding him very, very still as he watched her chest and listened, waiting for more.

She took another breath and then another. Her heart picked up speed and began to beat at almost a normal rate.

Demyan closed his eyes and let out a shaking breath.

“You found me,” Pritti whispered.

He opened his eyes. She was looking at him. Properly.

Demyan gathered her up in his arms and just held her. He was shaking, the adrenaline breaking through the symbiot’s control.

Pritti twined her arms around his shoulders, clinging to him.

“This is the beginning, isn’t it?” he asked. He looked down at her dear, sweet face, waiting for her answer.

She nodded, her enormous eyes on his.

“Can I keep bringing you back like I just did this time?”

After a moment of simply looking at him, she slowly shook her head. A single tear welled in her eye and dropped onto his chest. Her chin wobbled.

“How much longer?” he made himself ask.

“Soon,” she whispered.

He couldn’t think of a thing to reassure her or make her feel better, not when he was dying inside. So he held her, instead. While her tears soaked his shirt, Demyan determined that no matter what it took, regardless of the futures it would destroy in the process, he would find a way to save Pritti’s.

He was done with tiptoeing through the minefield of the future. Let someone else worry about consequences.

He kissed her temple. “There’s a doctor I know. A kind of doctor. In Hammerside, in Detroit. I’m going to go and talk to her. Today.”

“Hammerside?” Her arms tightened around him. “Don’t go alone. There’s psi-filers all over Hammerside.”

“I’ll take someone with me. A local, sort of.”

* * * * *

Hammerside, Detroit-Rocktown Supercity, 2264 A.D.:
As far as Marley could tell as she picked her way through trash lining Gershom Street, a harassed medical resident sweating out her tour of duty and a busy waitress coping with the noon rush were exactly the same thing. It didn’t improve her mood.

Worse, it was an overcast morning promising rain, possibly even snow. The Detroit skyline was jagged with grey clouds that hung so low that the skeletal remains of the downtown skyscrapers, just a mile or two away, seemed to punch into the bottom of them.

She pulled her coat in tighter around her chest, for all the good it did her. The wind was whistling along Gershom with a vengeance, whipping at the loose tendrils of her hair with a snap and making her ears ache. She ducked into the diner with relief, feeling the heat bake her cheeks and her ears. The furnace was working today. Good.

She straightened up and headed for the back of the diner, unbuttoning her coat. She nodded to Sheila behind the pastry case. Sheila had to weigh over three hundred pounds, which was miraculous for a citizen of Detroit. Whenever Marley thought about the quantity of food it would take to maintain that much weight, she felt dizzy with both hunger and disgust.

Sheila had blue button eyes and always wore a delicate watch with a tiny face that her mother gave her when she graduated high school thirty years ago. The watch almost disappeared into folds of fat on her wrist when she bent her hand the right way.

Sheila was a fixture here as much as Gerry was. Gerry was propped on the bar stool at the other end, sipping his endless coffee.

Mr. Kim came hurrying over as she pushed her card into the machine. “Marla, you go, you go today.” He smiled up at her with very white teeth.

“Yes, I work today,” she agreed.

“No, no work today.”

Marley looked at him properly. His black eyes were watching her warily. “I
have
to work today,” she said, hoping this was a misunderstanding. “I’m on the schedule. You said I could have the shift.” God, the hours, the money….

“No, no work today. Too many waitress. Too slow. You go home.” Mr. Kim smiled at her again, like he was doing her a favor.

Marley could feel sickness pooling in her stomach. Sweat popped at her temples. “But you said I could have the shift! I’m on the goddamn schedule!” She clutched at her coat that she’d just hung up, trying to beat back the nausea.

Mr. Kim’s smile faded. She’d invoked the Lord’s name. Marley sighed mentally. Like a lot of Detroit humans, Mr. Kim was a devout Catholic and didn’t hold with swearing. She tried again. “Look, Mr. Kim, I really need this shift and I’m on the schedule, and I’m already here. So I may as well work, right?”

He shook his head, his lips held together in a straight tight purse. “You are small. Less...senior. You must go home. Others get work first.”

Over his shoulder, Marley saw Sheila looking through the walk-through, watching her with a knowing expression. Sheila, with her twenty years of seniority.

Marley began to shake.
Panic attack
. Even knowing that the clinical reason for her symptoms was a sudden flood of adrenaline didn’t help her deal with it any better.

“Well, that’s j-just stupid!” she told Mr. Kim. “All the more senior waitress don’t need the work as badly as I do! They’ve had years to set up their schemes and skim from the top, the sides and the goddam middle. I have to pay my rent today and I haven’t got the money and I need this shift to pay it! Now what am I supposed to do? Tell my roommate I can’t pay because I haven’t had time to build up a scam at my place of employment yet? Talk about C-catch-22!”

She pulled her coat off the hook and heard the fabric tear. That seemed appropriate. A hole in her coat just added to the day. She drew a quick breath, and another and realized she was close to hyperventilating. But all the medical knowledge in the world didn’t seem to be helping her deal with it right now.
Physician, heal thyself
, she thought dryly as she gasped in shallow breaths. Yeah, right.

Mr. Kim’s eyes narrowed. “You are a bad girl!”

Marley clenched her jaw and pointed at Sheila, who was watching the scene with pure delight. Sheila had never liked her and now she was letting that dislike show. “She’s a bad girl, Mr. Kim. Why don’t you check
her
pockets?”

Sheila looked affronted, her jaw dropping in shock.

Mr. Kim did, too. “You are fired. Fired,” he repeated for emphasis.

Marley nodded, knowing she had opened herself wide up for this. But the tears dripped anyway. She couldn’t help the waterworks. It was a physiological response, not an emotional one. She thrust her arms into her coat, picked up her bag again and pushed past Mr. Kim out onto Gershom Street, all while trying to control her breathing. She walked until she thought no one could see her through the diner’s windows, then leaned up against a wall and closed her eyes. “Oh god....”

Jobs that actually paid money were almost as rare in Detroit as hot showers and good food. How on earth was she going to find another one? She had lucked into this one – pure happenstance. She had been passing when Mr. Kim had posted the sign. She had been the first and only person to apply, for he had removed the sign five minutes after he had fixed it to the single whole window pane in the diner.

You had to know a lot of people to hear about new jobs and she hadn’t been in the city long enough to build up her contacts. Two years in this hell hole was nothing compared to the thirty or more years that Sheila and people like her had been surviving here.

Marley stayed there until the shakes subsided, breathing deeply and slowly, pulling in oxygen and hoping she wouldn’t be sick. When she thought her hands had enough fine motor control returned to them, she pulled out the pins holding her hair up in the waitress bun and let it loose about her shoulders. The wind blowing the garbage about Gershom Street would also blow it about her face. But her hair was thick and came down to under her shoulder blades now because hairdressers didn’t exist in Detroit anymore. Her loose hair would give her shoulders, neck and ears some protection against the wind. She turned her coat collar up under her hair and headed west along Gershom for home.

There were a handful of the old Victorian townhouses left, but they were no longer graceful family units. Most of them had been converted to shop fronts and Marley took little delight in the peeling paint and broken windows. The majority of the long rows of family housing that had once stood here had been knocked down to make way for commercial buildings and high density apartment blocks to serve inner city needs.

Marley crossed over the intersection onto her block. Right on the corner was Lucky Maddoc’s Bar and Coffeehouse. She always passed the place with a wistful sigh. She would give her eye teeth to work there, because thanks to the g-station right across the road, Lucky’s managed to attract real money from aliens – non-Detroit people –They made enough to survive. Basit, who managed the place, wouldn’t hire her because she didn’t have the necessary experience. He had been very sweet, but very firm about it. He needed someone who could hit the floor running, he had explained. Lucky’s was busy enough and he had applications enough that he didn’t have to ease someone in who didn’t know a highball from screwdriver, a tall shot from a macchiato, and or how to keep the clientele’s hands off her ass while she was sorting them out.