Kiss Across Deserts Read online

  Alex looked down at the young girl standing patiently at his side. She looked up at him and raised her brow in exactly the same way Brody did. It made Alex smile. “I don’t think I can answer you, Marit. I’m still looking for answers myself. It’s a barren time for me.”

  She picked up his hand, her young fingers curling around his. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That must suck.”

  “It does, indeed,” Alex told her gravely.

  * * * * *

  By the time eight o’clock chimed on the big grandfather clock in the front hall, everyone had left except for one or two stragglers. Chris and Eloise were great-grandchildren and barely knew him, so Rafe didn’t feel slighted by them finishing off the bottle of champagne in the library, talking quietly. They were cousins, but lived on different sides of the country, so the fact that they had made the effort to be here for his birthday was good enough for him.

  That left him and Charlie sitting at the big table. Charlie liked his port, even though it played hell with his gout, so Rafe always made sure there was at least a couple of bottles of the hundred-year-old Madeira in the house, when he was expecting him.

  Charlie had nearly finished the bottle that had been opened before dinner. He poured himself a half-glass and looked around the room, taking in the empty table. “Wimps,” he declared. “This new generation is far too health conscious. Makes me uncomfortable.”

  “You should embrace the discomfort,” Rafe told him. “It forces you to keep up.”

  Charlie cocked his brow at him. The brow was silver. His blue eyes underneath the shaggy brows were milky with age and the flesh about them deeply wrinkled. Happy lines, not grumpy ones, at least. “You’re the only one in this family who has to worry about staying current. It’s my privilege to grow old and set in my ways, curse the younger generations and die a bitter old man.” He lifted his glass toward Rafe. “And I can drink myself into my grave, too. Cheers.”

  Rafe grinned. “It seems to me you’ve done more than your share of adapting and changing. Speaking of which…no offense, Charlie, but I think it’s time for you to move from father to grandfather status.”

  Charlie snorted into his glass, then tipped it up and drained it. He put it back on the blinding white tablecloth carefully and turned on his chair so he could rest one elbow on the back of it and the other on the table. It placed him so he was looking directly at Rafe. “Is that your way of telling me I’m getting old?”

  “You’re eighty-two next month. I think that qualifies as old by anyone’s standards.”

  Charlie pursed his lips together in a silent whistle. “You remembered my birthday.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? You’re my son.”

  “One of…exactly how many is it now?”

  “None, since your sisters grew up,” Rafe said flatly.

  “Is that why this big old house is rattling like a skeleton in a casket? There’s no one here but you and the staff. Is your judgeship so thrilling you don’t notice?”

  Rafe sat back in his chair and blew out his breath just as Charlie had done. Charlie had always been able to see through any bullshit he tried use as an excuse. He’d noticed, of course, how pared down his life was now. “I’m thinking it’s time I moved on to the next life,” he said softly.

  Charlie rolled the little port glass around on its base, denting the tablecloth, as he considered that. “You’re not talking about a vacation or a change of career, are you?”

  Rafe shook his head.

  Silence.

  Then Charlie grimaced. “Well, it had to happen sooner or later, didn’t it? You warned me. More than once.”

  Rafe swallowed. This was harder than he thought it would be. It was always difficult and he never remembered, until the next time he had to drag his family and kids through the cesspool that marked the transition to a new life. It was always a wretched time, and in five hundred years he still hadn’t figured out a way to make it easy for them.

  So he stayed silent, letting Charlie absorb it and adjust.

  Charlie sucked his teeth, with an expression that looked sour. “So…how are you going to do the deed? You’re pretty high profile right now. People’ll notice if you just disappear. And if you try to kill yourself, there’ll be enquiries for years. You’ll invent your own grassy knoll.”

  Rafe shook his head. “There’s time, yet,” he said. “Years, even. But the years are running out and I have to start putting plans into place for when they do. I just wanted to…well, warn you, I suppose.”

  “Warn?” Charlie repeated, surprised.

  “So you’re braced,” Rafe said. “I spent my share of nights waiting for you to come home, or the police to come calling to tell me you’d got into some mischief that had ended badly. Those nights are very long. The call, when you get it, doesn’t go easier for all the worry that came before.”

  “You’ve had that call?” Charlie asked sharply.

  “Yes,” Rafe said flatly. He didn’t expand on it. Charlie understood very well why he couldn’t talk about former lives. “But here’s the thing, Charlie. If you’d ever had kids, you might understand this better. It’s the sudden absence that bites the hardest. Being unprepared for it…well, it cuts far deeper than knowing in advance. So I’m going to spare you that.”

  “You’ve just disappeared?”

  “I’ve had to, once or twice. Times weren’t always as civilized as these.”

  Charlie scowled. “Nothing civilized about these times, either.”

  “They’re civilized enough that I don’t think there should be any reason for you to get a sudden call in the night and have that be the end.” Rafe got to his feet and walked around the table to pick up the bottle of Madeira. “Another?”

  Charlie pushed the glass across the linen toward him. “Why the hell not?” he said, his voice rough.

  “I love you, too, you grumpy old bastard.” He topped up the glass.

  Charlie cleared his throat. Then again. Then he stood up, pulled the bottle out of Rafe’s hand and put it on the table, before hugging him tightly.

  Rafe hugged him back, just as hard. Then he kissed his temple. “There’s time yet,” he said, and his voice was just as hoarse as Charlie’s.

  Charlie waved him away impatiently, his head averted. He still held the belief that his generation had grown up with that a man who cried wasn’t a man at all. So Rafe let him hide his face and recover.

  Charlie sniffed mightily and reached for the full glass. “You can’t…I don’t know – you can’t rig things the way you have been since you got me? Become a brother, then a son, then a grandson, then a distant cousin who rolls into town.” He cleared his throat again. “It’s worked just fine for nearly a hundred years. Why not a hundred more?”

  Rafe couldn’t find an answer he wanted to give Charlie, so he went back into the kitchen and through into the wine cellar to get the other bottle of Madeira, instead. The real answer would just puzzle Charlie. How could he explain the emptiness that came from centuries of living to someone who didn’t get to live for even one century? How did he explain to his son that this life didn’t satisfy, that he was still looking for something he’d lost, long, long ago?

  Another bottle of Madeira was a weak substitute, but it would have to do.

  * * * * *

  Alex knew that if Marit saw him now, she would be horrified. Brody, Veris and Taylor would be disappointed. But the knowledge that what he was doing would upset them sat a long way off. It didn’t register as critical, merely as an interesting fact.

  He rearranged his legs, with painstaking exactness, so that they were crossed once more. He was sitting on the thick Bokhara rug in his living room. He was naked, for the infinite shifting of his clothes against his skin had become annoying.

  He contemplated the sound of the rain that he could hear through the windows. A thought surfaced that he should shut the windows, but it also didn’t register with any urgency and he let it go.

  There was a more interesti
ng thought, somewhere ahead of him. He had been trying to wrest the thing to earth, to uncover it, for the last few minutes…or days, he wasn’t quite sure. Each time he thought he had caught a glimpse of it, it slipped away, not quite forming in his mind. But there was such excitement attached to it! A thrilling wave of anticipation would shoot through him every time he drew nearer to the thought.

  He had increased the dose this time and he could feel the difference. Every nerve was alive, every thought took an age to complete itself in his mind, giving him time to examine every nuance, to consider possible scenarios that might arise, depending on the choices made. He had never felt so full of life, so ripe with possibilities.

  The first time Alex had used himself as a trial guinea pig, he had taken the smallest dose possible. The resulting floating sensation had been interesting merely for the fact that Alex suspected it was the vampire equivalent of being high on any one of the recreational drugs humans used. Of course, he could take a quart of pure heroin through his veins and it would have a null effect. He wouldn’t even blink. It was therefore impossible to judge if the high that humans experienced was the same as he had felt.

  But getting high hadn’t been his purpose in designing the serum, so Alex had tried again, with a stronger dose. The second time, the high sensation was distinct and very pleasant. He had noticed his thoughts slowing down even then. That was when he had felt the impending sensation. Something is going to happen! His breath, his heart, his thoughts had held still, waiting for this momentous thing to occur. It was just around the corner, about to happen at any moment.

  He knew that when it did, it would be wonderful. The potential of the moment throbbed in him. His flesh was slick with sweat and his heart raced. As a doctor, he knew that his adrenaline had spiked hard, preparing his body for this wonderful thing that was about to happen. He could taste the coppery, bitter dregs in his mouth. Even that sensation was joyful because his adrenal glands had been defunct for ten centuries.

  But the thought had eluded him that time, as it had every time he had dosed himself since then. He had gradually increased the dose, reaching for the thought, the idea, the whatever-it-was that lay just ahead in his mind. Every time he would come to himself a few hours later in real time, still ignorant of what his mind was trying to tell him, but with the ingrained certainty that it was very important he uncover the knowledge.

  Today, he had doubled the dose from the previous occasion. Even as he had prepared the syringe, Alex debated with himself. It was incredibly stupid, doing his own trials. But then, trying to build an antidote to the vampire sedative he had developed two years ago had become very much a secondary concern.

  He’d held up the syringe with the pale gold liquid and studied it while he faced the truth. He didn’t give a damn about the antidote anymore. He wanted to find the knowledge, the thing his mind kept teasing him with. He wanted to know what it was that he had been trying to tell himself he should remember or acknowledge.

  In a life that had become grinding routine, this was the freshest and most interesting thing to happen in an age or two. The spike of pleasure, the sense of recognition that the thing he was trying to uncover was a happy thing, a good thing…it was as elusive as a shy lover.

  So he sat very still, unaware of his physical body except in the same distant way that other thoughts kept floating into focus, then drifting off again. Yet at the same time, he could feel…everything. Every single fine tuft of the rug, pressing against his flesh. The chill of the damp air bathing his body. The soft flutter of the curtains as the wind lifted them. The sound of rain against the water barrel just under the window. Distant traffic. And farther ahead…

  Excitement flared in him. All this time he had been focusing within, convinced the thing he sought was a thought or a memory. But now that he had pulled the focus outward, out toward the world, he could see the world opening up to him. And there! Just ahead. There it was, the thing he sought. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it, could feel the hot promise it radiated.

  He reached for it. So close, so very close….

  His door bell was ringing incessantly.

  He frowned. The thought he was chasing slipped further from his grasp.

  The other idea came into focus again. The door bell was ringing.

  Someone was here. The secondary thought, attached to the idea of the door bell ringing, occurred to him with something like a start.

  Alex opened his eyes and shivered. He was cold. But before he could marvel over the novelty of feeling cold, the doorbell chimed once more – a long, long series of notes. Someone was laying on the button with force. How long had they been trying to get his attention?

  He rolled over onto his hands and knees, moving stiffly. He got to his feet with painful slowness, trying to shake off the drug’s effects.

  Have to be normal.

  He had been pretending to be a normal human for a long time, but it was so much harder now.

  The bell rang again.

  He lifted his head. “Coming!” he called as loudly as he could. Then he looked around the room. His robe was hanging off the back of the sofa. He grabbed that. It would be easier than struggling to dress. His clothes lay scattered across the rug.

  Then he went to answer the front door. He didn’t know why, but he kept himself between the door and the outside and glared at the man in jeans and a button-through shirt on his doorstep.

  “Alexander Karim?” the man said.

  Was that his name now? He couldn’t remember. “Last time I checked, I think I was,” Alex said truthfully.

  The man grinned. “That’s one I actually haven’t heard before.” He held out a big white envelope. “You’ve been served, Doctor.”

  There was still enough adrenaline in Alex’s system that the surprise didn’t register as it might have. Alex took the envelope with fingers that felt thick, staring at it. It felt like his eyes were very wide. He looked up. The process server was already at the end of the drive. There was an old Honda Civic sitting at the end, blocking the drive. Was that to keep him from running away?

  Alex shut the door and turned and leaned against it. Getting the envelope open took long minutes as his fingers didn’t want to cooperate. He finally tore off one end of it and reached inside.

  Sharp pain!

  With a hiss, he pulled his hand out and stared at the tip of his middle finger. Blood oozed from the paper cut. His finger throbbed.

  “I can feel it.”

  He realized he had spoken aloud to an empty room and looked up to confirm that there wasn’t anyone there. He was quite alone.

  Then he noticed the mess. Through the archway he could see that the living room was littered with clothing, books, notepads. None of the shoes were standing in pairs. The cushions that usually made the divan look so pleasantly overstuffed and comfortable were scattered across the floor. His laptop and tablet were on the coffee table, their power leads hanging over the edge and trailing on the floor.

  He turned his head, tracking the disorder. He had walked around and over it all, not even noticing, when he had answered the door.

  In the opposite direction, the dining room and the big teak table where he did most of his research…. Alex sucked in small, shocked breath. Normally, he maintained strict order in the dining room, for he couldn’t think if it was chaotic. What he saw through the doorway was a massive assault on good order. Someone had taken a snow blower to the room, scattering paper everywhere.

  “What’s the date?” Alex asked the air. His voice was croaky.

  Then he answered himself. “Look on your phone, imbecile.”

  He guessed that the phone would be with his laptop and tablet and he could look on those if he was wrong. There were always his pants pockets, too. He walked across the entrance to the archway, fighting to walk in an even line. He swallowed as he realized that it was taking far more effort than it should to walk straight. The serum still had a grip on him. If he wanted to, he could probably relax an
d let it take him once more. He had been so close, after all.

  He considered the clear spot on the rug, where he had been sitting. All he had to do was sit down once more.

  But wasn’t there something he was going to do. He had come in here to…what?

  Didn’t matter. He could deal with it later. There was always time, later.

  Without realizing he had even made the decision, Alex sank down to the carpet. Thoughts were already evaporating, leaving him with a silvered plain of nothingness. The quarry could always been seen clearly on the plains, the flat, hard and hot reg. They could be seen for miles and miles, unlike the erg, the rolling dunes that hid the enemy’s approach.

  The desert. The place of his childhood. It came to him now with almost painful detail. The dryness in his nose and mouth, the fine sifting sand that got into everything, and the oppressive, relentless heat, that was like a live beast, coiling around one tighter and tighter until it was hard to breathe.

  Alex looked out across the dry, stony plain, the reg of his childhood, looking for his quarry. It was out there, nearby. He would find it and then he would know.

  Chapter Two

  Rafe watched the limousine unload its passengers onto the grand curve of the driveway that swung around the classic fountain in front of his house. He could see them very clearly through the big French doors that separated his office from the front gardens.

  There were five adults and the child, Marit. He knew all of them to one degree or another. Veris, who had been a warrior turned doctor when they had first met. Brody, who had been Braenden, back then. Taylor, the woman they were married to. Rafe didn’t know her beyond the fact that she was their wife, but as a human, she had caught and held the attention of two of the most fascinating people ever to wander through time. She could not be underestimated.

  The small woman with the long black hair was the housekeeper and nanny, Mia. He had not been introduced to her in Los Vegas, but the council guards had been specific—she had laid one of the guards out cold. As a human, she would bear watching, too.