Romani Armada (45 page)

“Well, it might be clean enough,” Cybelia said gently. “But it doesn’t fit you at all. Have you lost weight?”

Mariana stared at her. “Me?” She looked down at herself again. This time she
really
looked, and noticed what she had only been peripherally aware of until now. The pants clung to her hips, rather than hugging her waist like they should, which meant the hems were dragging on the ground. The shirt, which had been loose fitting to begin now felt like it was billowing around her waist.

“You should wear heels if you’re going to keep your hems that long,” Cybelia suggested.

“I didn’t...they never used to touch the ground.” She pulled at the waistband, lifting them up until the hems were just brushing the floor. Then she let the band go and they slumped back into soft accordion folds around her heels. “When did that happen?
How
did that happen?” She hadn’t been avoiding food at all.

Cybelia smiled. “I suspect that Nayara has been overworking you and no one around here eats, so your own eating has suffered.”

“But it hasn’t!” Mariana replied. “Even in China I ate...only constantly! There was always these stir fries available at the cafe, and the most beautiful fresh fruit...” She frowned.

“Is that what you’re eating here?” Cybelia asked, her smile lingering.

“I guess...yes.” Mariana bit her lip. “I eat on the run a lot. Handfuls, here and there. Things I can carry in one hand.”

“Fruit, nuts, vegetables,” Cybelia guessed.

“Yes, I suppose that’s mostly what I eat,” Mariana said slowly, thinking it through. “But I’m never hungry. I eat all the time.”

“And swim. I saw you in the pool several times.”

Mariana drew in a breath. “That wasn’t exercise. I just...like the pool. With the fountains and the garden at one end, and the waterfall, it’s hard not to want to dive in even when you’re fully clothed.”

Cybelia picked up her hand. “Well, whatever you’re doing, you should keep doing it. In the meantime, let’s get you some more clothes. Something a bit more up-to-date than twenty-first century China.”

“I don’t...I wouldn’t...” Mariana began, tripping over her words as alarm grew in her.

Cybelia looked back at her. “What?”

“It would be nice,” Mariana said carefully, “If I could have something to wear that didn’t look too much like Nayara’s...wardrobe.” The last thing she wanted to do was wear the outrageously sexy and flamboyant gowns and business suits Cybelia designed for Nayara. The evening gowns she wore to any public event were quickly copied and reproduced by garment companies the world over, along with the day wear she dressed up in for other functions. Mariana knew she would look like a heifer trying to dress like a calf. She would look ridiculous and feel even more self-conscious than usual.

Cybelia smiled gently. “I can do much better than Nayara’s showy clothes. You’ll see. Come. Come.” She began to pull Mariana toward the back of the big room where half a dozen of her assistants were working with equipment and fabric. There were long sets of rails on wheels, holding up completed garments that would be sent to the hermetically sealed wardrobe, to be used for travelers and their clients, as needed.

Ideas sprouted like a fireworks display and Mariana gasped, halting.

Cybelia turned to face her. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“Clothes!” Mariana breathed, trying to build a cohesive whole out of the bright blooming thoughts.

Cybelia raised a brow. “Yes, clothes indeed,” she agreed gently.

“You can make them. I mean, make more. Modern ones. For humans.”

Cybelia frowned. “Why would I—”

“For the money,” Mariana said flatly. “Why should all the copycat couture houses out there get all the credits for duplicating what you designed?
You
should get the money. Your department should get the money. You’re a fantastic designer and now that Nayara and Ryan’s book is such a big hit, everyone wants to be like vampires. You could make clothes for them. For everyone. Well, you would design them, then someone else could make them under your license.”

“Prêt-à-Porter,” Cybelia said.

“What?”

Cybelia gripped Mariana’s wrist. “You’re talking about ready-to-wear. But we would need an entire factory to produce—”

“Just make as many as you can. The rarity factor will raise the prices through the roof. As the money comes in you can expand. You’ll sell millions, Cybelia, I know you will. You’ll be able to afford to
buy
that factory once you’re rolling.”

Cybelia’s fingers around her wrist squeezed. “It might work,” she said softly, to herself.

“You would be doing contemporary clothing,” Mariana pointed out. “Designing it straight out of your imagination. That’s got to be fun, after doing tunics and togas for decades.”

Cybelia smiled. “Oh, that was the first thought I had.” She tugged on Mariana’s wrist. “But first, we sort out
your
wardrobe, madam.”

“I could do with a change of clothes,” Mariana confessed.

“You’re going to get a whole new closet’s worth,” Cybelia told her. “And then I’m going to personally burn what you’ve been wearing and watch it turn to ashes. Come. Come!”

* * * * *

Bushland, near Beechworth, Victoria, Australia, 1879:
The tapping on her cheek was annoying. It even hurt a little. Every tap nudged her head just a fraction and set off a corresponding pounding in her brain that made her wince.

She hurt everywhere, it felt like.

“Look at me,” Justin murmured.

“Open your eyes, Deonne,” Adán urged. “Please.”

Then she remembered. Liping. The apartment building. The little man Justin had called Jury…no, Juris. Then, the explosion.

“The bomb!” she cried and tried to open her eyes and sit up at the same time. It was a bad mistake. Her head tried to remove itself from her neck – or that was what it felt like from the way the pain expanded and intensified. Her head was going to blow up, just like their apartment building.

She moaned and grabbed at her temple.

“Slowly does it,” came a third voice. It sounded a lot like…

She cracked one eye open by a sliver.

Adán and Justin were looming over her. So was Ryan.

Over their heads were the tops of trees that looked odd and pale. The sky beyond them was a washed out blue and utterly cloudless.

Deonne opened her eyes slowly and warily. Adán sat back with a heavy sigh.

Justin stroked her cheek. “You scared us.”

“Why is Ryan here?” she asked and wasn’t surprised when her voice emerged as a croaky whisper.

Ryan got to his feet, telling Deonne he had been on his knees. He was wearing the strangest garments. They were dusty, his boots were scuffed and run down, and his shirt was no longer the white it would have been when it was new. He had his cuffs rolled up nearly to his elbows, and the shirt didn’t have a collar.

“I came to make sure the marker was clear and secure,” he told her. He looked at Justin. “I have some water. That will help offset her shock.”

Justin nodded. “Thanks.” He helped Deonne to sit up and that was when she discovered she was lying on the ground. Well, not quite the ground. A stained and faded blanket lay folded beneath her.

She looked around with interest. They were still in wooded countryside, but it looked nothing like the trees and undergrowth that had surrounded Liping. These trees were tall and their trunks slender and pale. The grounded was littered with fallen and rotting leaves.

The leaves on the trees hung limp and still. The air itself seemed motionless. Nothing stirred but the four of them.

It was stupefyingly hot, too. The pulsing heat was a nice change from the crisp mornings at Liping, but Deonne knew the novelty wouldn’t last.

Somewhere high up near the treetops, a crow gave a long, mournful call, making her jump in surprise.

There was a campfire burning nearby, but they had placed her far enough away from the flames that the heat didn’t reach her. At the edge of the little clearing a horse stood with his head down, cropping at the grasses growing around the base of the trees. His reins were looped around a low branch. Ryan was digging in the horse’s saddlebag.

On the same side of the clearing, there was a plainly visible path in the undergrowth, worn bare by many feet, snaking through the trees. A dozen yards further on, it ended. Through the gap in the trunks created by the path, Deonne glimpsed rolling green growth lit by brilliant sunlight and further way, more trees. The horizon was broken up by high, craggy and wooded hills.

Ryan walked back toward the fire, carrying a flat leather container. Water. He held it out to Justin, who twisted the narrow lid and removed it. He held the container out to Deonne. “It’s not pure like you’re used to, but it is drinkable and you need it.”

The thought of cool water in her mouth made her throat contract. She reached for the container and carefully drank. After the first glorious mouthful, she noticed the taste. Justin was right. It wasn’t water she was used to, but it was wet.

Adán was standing by the fire, next to a small pile of clothing the same vintage and quality as Ryan was wearing. He was naked except for his trousers, which he was in the process of removing.

“Where are we?” Deonne asked Justin.

“Australia. The state of Victoria. It’s eighteen-seventy-nine.”

She was now five centuries into the past. Deonne looked around the quiet clearing once more. “This is where you grew up?”

“Not far from here,” Justin confirmed. He got to his feet. “There’s a town called Beechworth about three miles away, through the bush. In a shack at the edge of the town there’s a five year old version of me giving my mother grief, as usual.” His smile was strained.

“
Madre María, sálvame,”
Adán muttered.

Everyone looked at him. He was wearing the trousers that had been folded at his feet a few moments ago, but he was still shirtless. He had one hand to his chest, and he was turning the other hand over and back, staring at it.

“Danny?” Justin prompted softly.

Adán looked up at them, his gaze shifting from Ryan to where Justin stood next to Deonne, then back. “I’m
human
,” Adán breathed.

Ryan laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Just wait until you’ve digested your first meal. It’ll become real enough then.”

Adán blinked. “Food,” he breathed, his tone one of worship.

Deonne giggled. She clapped her hand over her mouth to shut it off, but Adán’s bemused expression was too funny to contain it. She brought her knees up to her chest and held both hands firmly over her mouth, but her shoulders shook as the laughter took her, and her eyes filled with tears.

Adán looked affronted. Then he smiled and the smile was full of mischief. “Yes, laugh now,” he agreed quietly. “Laugh at the man who has forgotten how to fasten the buttons on his trousers. But I want to watch you lace yourself into the corset every lady wears.”

Deonne’s laughter faded abruptly. “
Corset?”
she repeated.

Adán grinned.

* * * * *

Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2264 A.D.:
Rhydder was born Cadeyrn Judoc Rhydder but there was only one person alive now who remembered that. Even Llewellyn didn’t know that the bastard Saxons Rhydder hated with a blood-inducing fury had called him The Shard.
Sverd!
, they had warned each other as he came at them. Fifty years later he had learned that
sverd
meant sword. He was The Sword to his enemies. The Shard, as he had become known.

The Agency knew only that he was the leader of the dark cast — the Malsinne — and condemned him along with his gutter trash. While the Assur, the Eridu and the Lagash all had greater talents beyond the vampire race’s usual abilities to heal, extraordinary speed, strength and agility, the Malsinne did not, and everyone saw this as appropriate and evidence that the dark cast were a lesser breed.

Their weakness for human blood was another slur on their character. The siren song of the hot, coppery fluid the Malsinne found harder to resist than the other casts gave them a reputation as addicts and co-dependents. The laughing stock of the vampire race.

All this ran through Rhydder’s mind as he faced his assembled troops in the main section of their new training area one hundred feet below Villa Fontani. It was ten thirty in the morning and what passed for a vampire metabolism would be cranky in all of them. Rhydder could certainly feel it, but staying vampire for longer than a week was novel for him.

Their slowed reactions would ensure the vampire standing chained before him would be less trouble to deal with.
Evelyn stood wrapped in iron chains between two of his strongest lieutenants, her head up, her expression defiant. Rhydder had instructed that the blood she had feasted upon be left on her chin. Now it had dried there like an ochre brown scaly skin and was flaking away. Her teeth were down, as if she was expecting trouble.

Well, she was in trouble, no doubt about it. Rhydder mentally sighed. He lifted his voice for the benefit of everyone in the area. “You fed upon an unwilling human despite an edict against the practice that has stood for a hundred and twenty years.”

Evelyn hissed as if she would take him on, given her freedom. The troops stirred in reaction to the threat.

Except for those on active patrol, they had all made it to the hearing. Even the lowliest recruit. Disbelief brought many of them. Satisfaction brought others, for Evelyn was not well liked. Rhydder didn’t care why they were here, only that they witnessed this. The reinforcement was necessary.

A flash of light in the corner of his eye made him glance up toward the observation box. The door of the observation box had been opened, spilling in more normal light from the rest of the base, as someone slipped into the box. As the door closed, Rhydder could see who it was leaning against the concrete barrier, gripping the steel bar that ran along the top.

Demyan Romanov. The Tsarist with too much anger locked in him. Rhydder knew that phenomenon well.