Authors: Tracy Cooper-Posey
She was clearly someone important, for even Demyan and Pritti were sitting up straighter, watching her enter. Marley reached into her memory for anything she knew about the Chronometric Conservation Agency that might tell her who the woman was, but she knew next to nothing. She had spent ten years earning the right to treat humans and the last two years simply struggling to survive. There had been no room or time left over in her life to pay any attention to vampires and their immortality.
She suddenly wished Gawain were here. He would, she was sure, be able to give her a potted history of the agency, the critical players in it, and paint a complete picture of how Pritti, a psi, and Demyan and Rhydder fit into the structure and politics.
The red-headed woman walked straight up to the desk. Marley had been familiarizing herself with the controls and automation the desk offered, so she stood up behind it.
The red-head smiled, and it was a warm expression that seemed quite genuine. “You are Marley Alexander, I am told,” the woman said.
Marley nodded.
“I am Nayara Ybarra, the executive officer of the Agency. I am very glad to have you here. I hope everything we’ve constructed meets your specifications?”
Marley drew in a shaky breath. “You arranged all this?” she asked carefully.
“Pritti is very important to us,” Nayara replied, glancing at the tiny woman with another smile.
“But...” Marley made herself shut up.
Nayara tilted her head. “No, we are not concerned about your lack of a title, Marley Alexander. We have many people in the Agency with the gift of healing, and none of them are called ‘Doctor’ either. We value their contributions as much as we value yours.”
Marley’s heart was hurting. “You know that by treating Pritti, I have broken the law? You do understand that, don’t you?”
Nayara’s smile broadened and Marley thought her eyes were glittering with humor. “You have much to learn about vampires and the Agency. One thing you should know is that we try as much as possible to abide by all human laws. Sometimes, however, we find it expedient to...cut corners, shall we say?”
“That doesn’t stop me from being thrown in jail, or worse.”
“Only if they catch you,” Nayara returned. “You’re working for the agency now. We will naturally extend to you all the protective measures we have at our disposal. I should warn you that those powers are considerable.”
Marley looked from Nayara to Rhydder, who was standing at the open door with his arms crossed, leaning against the steel-glass frame in an indolent pose. He stared back steadily.
She found her gaze moving to Demyan, looking for answers. “You let me think you were doing a favor for a friend.”
“Two days ago, I was,” Demyan assured her.
“We are all doing a favor for a friend,” Nayara said, her voice as smooth and honeyed as muted trumpets. “But the Agency has resources that make our favors far more effective that anything Demyan could do on his own. Rhydder was wise enough to recognize that I could help.” Nayara spread her hand in a gesture that took in the office, the lab and all the equipment. “You can work with perfect security and peace of mind here. If there is something you need to complete Pritti’s treatment that we have failed to provide, you have only to ask for it.”
Marley couldn’t get her heart to stop thudding. This was something that happened in net novels. She drew in a sharp breath. “What’s the catch?” she asked bluntly.
Nayara’s smile broadened. “There is no catch,” she assured Marley. “But you might find that once you have got to know us, you will be reluctant to return to your old life. We seem to have that effect on people.” She walked to the door and looked back at Marley. “It’s not a catch, but it is a warning. We change people’s lives.”
She passed through the outer room and stepped out of the suite, shutting the door behind her.
Marley let her breath out. “That’s a warning?” she asked.
“Most humans don’t like change,” Pritti said, her delicate voice loud in the total silence that gripped the suite.
Rhydder straightened up from his lean. “You’re going to work harder than you’ve ever worked in your life. There’s a warning. These people don’t kid around.”
She looked up at him, startled. Then she smiled. “Hard work is something I do know. When can I start?”
Chapter Forty-Three
Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2264 A.D.:
Brenden held the handgun out to Adán, who took it reluctantly. He turned it over in his hands, examining it. “It seems that nothing has changed in the two hundred years I have skipped,” he commented. “Humans are still refining weapons to kill each other off.”
Justin moved to the workbench where Adán and Brenden stood. He held out his hand. “Try this on for size. I recall you were pretty handy with this, once.”
Adán picked up the big knife resting on Justin’s palm. “This is better,” he agreed, flipping it and spinning it until the blade was a blur. He tossed it up into the air and caught it again, by the hilt. He raised his brow and looked at Justin. “Is there a second one of these?”
“I’ll see what else Brenden has tucked away here,” Justin told him and moved back to the weapons locker he had been rooting through.
“Will you be away for long?” Deonne asked. She stood at the corner of the bench, feeling out of place and uneasy amongst all the weapons on display here. There was a staggering rage of them, including instruments and tools she couldn’t begin to name.
“As long as it needs,” Brenden replied, putting the gun away behind the plasteel security shield. “There’s no predicting how long it could take.”
Justin was sifting through cabinets on the far side of the room. She couldn’t see what he was looking through, but he reached deep inside the guts of one cupboard with a grunt of satisfaction. “There we go,” he said and withdrew another long, serrated knife. He reached in again and pulled out a scabbard that he pushed the knife into, then tossed it to Adán, who caught it with his free hand.
“You as good with those as the theatrics implies?” Brenden asked, crossing his arms.
“I am better with a longer blade,” Adán confessed. “But if I were to carry a sword around with me in this time, I am sure I would be arrested at the very least.”
“Swords, hmm? You should chat with Christian. He’s pretty good with a long blade. I prefer ‘em shorter, myself.”
“Greek?” Adán asked curiously. Then he smiled. “Sparta, yes?”
Brenden gave a small smile. “A long time ago.”
“Very long.” Adán stood up and threaded the scabbards onto his thick leather belt. “My time as a human seems like a whole different lifetime. I can barely remember most of it. All I have is highlights, now. Your time was even further back. How much do you remember?”
Brenden raised his brow. “Enough,” he said shortly.
Adán grinned. “You must forgive my prying. I like listening to stories and vampires usually have such interesting stories to tell. With the time travel, the stories are that much more fascinating.”
Brenden relaxed. “You’ll soon get used to our ways,” he said. “But you’ll have your work cut out trying to get anyone to talk to you. We like our privacy.” He glanced at the time readout mounted on the wall over the door. “Eighty minutes. Time to get moving.”
Deonne twined her fingers together. She felt useless. Although she had always considered herself a modern woman, the equal of men in all but physical strength and superior in many ways, it was a fact that the three men in the workshop had almost forgotten she was there. This was a peculiarly male form of bonding.
If she were a warrior like Nayara it might have been different, but she didn’t think so. Nayara was good at self-defense. She did not think Nayara would volunteer for the shadowy and mysterious task that Adán had stepped up to do. Something that involved arming himself to the hilt implied violence.
So Deonne stood by the corner and waited. For once in her life, she had no definable role in this new world she had suddenly been thrust into, but she would not interrupt the moment for it was showing her a different side of Adán’s and Justin’s natures.
Because they had lived so long and been born into times that tended to be more personally violent than this one, both of them had by circumstance learned how to defend themselves with a degree of expertise that allowed them to survive. She was seeing a hint of that expertise now. It brought this fact home to her in a way that even seeing the cottage that had been Justin’s childhood home had not: This was the other side of vampires – their long history.
Adán hid the knives away by dropping his shirt over the top of them. Then he moved to her side. “You look upset,
mi amor.
” He tilted her chin up. “You have never seen a man off to war, have you?”
Deonne pressed her lips together. “There’s not many women in this world who can say they have. These are different times, Adán.”
Justin moved to stand next to him. “Are they?” he asked, seriously. “They may have the veneer of civilization and peace, but we are at war, whether we want to be or not. Don’t forget the reason you were hiding back in Liping.”
Deonne sighed. “I guess that’s what comes from picking the good side. Everyone wants a piece of them.”
Adán kissed her. “I will be as quick as I can, my beloved, but I must do this.”
“Because the Agency has accepted you?” Deonne asked curiously.
Adán’s expression shifted. “Because of that, too,” he agreed.
“It’s Jack, isn’t it?” Justin asked Adán gently.
Adán scowled. “No one should make war upon children in this way. No one should use children and their families like this. It is the way of the terrorist. It is offensive.”
Deonne stared at him, surprised. She had known Justin felt strongly about family and children but Adán had been alone for so long… Yet he came from a race that valued family above all else.
Justin rested his hand on Deonne’s shoulder. “I will go and see Danny safely off. You can’t be there, you understand?”
She nodded. “Because I’m human,” she concluded.
“Because you know too much about the inner workings of the agency and you’re one of Gabriel’s least favorite people right now,” Brenden said, speaking from across the room as he turned a handgun over and over in his hands, examining it minutely.
Deonne sighed. “Be safe,” she told Adán.
* * * * *
Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2264 A.D.:
Marley was washing her hands at the sterile station when Nayara found her. Nayara closed the door between the lab and the office behind her and leaned against the door. “You have finished the post mortem?”
Marley nodded. “It’s not something I’ve had a lot of practice with. Autopsy techniques are a specialized art.”
“Then you must be a gifted all-rounder, for you impressed both Fahmido and Christian. Fahmido was just in my office and told me what she thought of your work.”
“I see.” Marley dried her hands using the quick cycle. “Well, thank you. I suppose Fahmido also gave you the results of the post mortem?”
Fahmido and Nayara had interrupted the tail-end of Marley’s latest therapy session with Pritti, with a request that she help them with a cadaver they’d have delivered to her lab. Fahmido was a medical researcher, with no hands-on experience dealing with humans, so while Fahmido observed, Marley’s assistant had been another vampire called Christian, who had a charming southern accent and a deft hand with a scalpel. Marley had left the practical side of dissecting the body to him while she had run the genetic and microscopic tests. Christian’s skill had told Marley that he was a fellow practitioner, but she had already learned not to ask personal questions of vampires, so she had not been able to learn about his career.
The body had been a woman and Marley’s DNA tests had proved that she was a psi-filer.
“Fahmido told me the woman was a descendent of psi-filers,” Nayara said now. “The strain is weak.”
“She had three human grandparents and the fourth was psi,” Marley told Nayara. “It would have given her some of the psi traits, but only a little.”
“It was enough for her to consider herself a psi,” Nayara concluded, her expression grim.
“You knew her,” Marley concluded. She frowned. “Where
did
the body come from?”
“We knew
of
her,” Nayara corrected. “Last year, she posed as human and her weakened psi genes escaped our basic scans, so we took her back to ancient Rome as she had requested. She stole the time marker from her traveler and disappeared. We have been looking for her ever since. Clearly, Gabriel and his psi-filers chose her precisely because she would pass our scans.”
“You found her too late,” Marley concluded. Then it occurred to her. “Unless…she
was
found alive?”
Nayara shook her head. “We didn’t kill her. The body was dumped at our front gates, thirty minutes before I asked you to perform the autopsy. I didn’t tell you this because I wanted you to investigate with no preconceived notions.”
Marley smiled. “I passed, then.”
“You were not being tested,” Nayara assured her, “but even Christian praised your skill and knowledge, and he is very hard to impress.”
“Is he? He didn’t say anything to me. He didn’t say much at all.”
“Christian doesn’t, until he is comfortable.” Nayara smiled. “Then he’s difficult to shut up.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
Nayara glanced through the glass wall to the small office. “How is she doing?”
Marley drew in a breath, controlling her reaction so she didn’t give away too much to Nayara. “Pritti?” she clarified, although she knew exactly who Nayara was referring to. She suspected that Nayara had come here just to ask this question. Everything else she had said had been pretext.
“Are your treatments having any effect?” Nayara asked.
Marley hesitated. Nayara wasn’t family, but she was fronting the organization that was paying the bills. It gave her an interest in the outcome of the treatment, but did it give her the right to privileged information?