Romani Armada (Beloved Bloody Time) Read online

  At the last moment Ophelia knew for certain that they would all come together at the same moment. She kept running hard and slammed into Rob’s chest. His arm locked around her back, as his other arm lifted the sword. She both felt and heard the impact of a battle ax against his blade, the ring of metal against metal.

  “Hold on,” Rob said sharply, for they were falling forward...falling down....

  No, Rob was falling into his jump, letting impetus and gravity do the work for him.

  Astonishment rippled through her as they slipped into the total sensory deprivation of the jump. Then even her astonishment was halted.

  They emerged into a dim light and Rob’s fall continued. She hunched herself inside his hold, her breath held against the coming impact, but he kept rolling forward so the back of his shoulder took the brunt of the fall. Then they tumbled across hard, rocky floor, but still he protected her as much as he could, until at last they came to a halt with Rob on his back and Ophelia sprawled across his chest.

  She picked herself up and brushed sand off. “For a rookie, that wasn’t half bad,” she told him.

  “Thanks.” He sat up, the sword in his hand clattering against the floor. “Welcome back to the Agency...such as it is.”

  She looked around, to find that nearly a dozen people were watching them. They were all agency people and stood or sat at tables on the other side of a rope that was slung across the space they were in.

  Ophelia looked up and behind her. “A cave? Where are we?” She glanced down at the back of her hand, which was stinging. A deep gouge across the knuckles from the sharp, pebble-strewn floor was healing as she watched. The symbiot was responding once more.

  “We’re deep in the heart of the Canadian Rockies,” Rob said, getting to his feet. “There’s several thousand tons of mountain above us.”

  She studied the roped off area they were in. “This is the arrival chamber?” she asked. “A piece of rope and a rocky floor?”

  “The temporary one, for now,” he told her and helped her to her feet. He pointed over her right shoulder. “All the amenities of home.”

  There was a big atomic clock readout attached to the wall of the cave. It looked exactly like the readouts in all the arrival chambers on the station. “Nayara has been busy.”

  “We all have,” came a booming voice, made larger by the echoing effects of the cave.

  The familiar voice made her stomach clench. Ophelia braced herself and turned to face Brenden. “You got my client home safely, I trust?” she asked.

  Brenden crossed his arms, scowling. “The professor didn’t come here. No humans are allowed in these caves. Rob landed him at a public chamber in California.”

  Nayara slipped out from between the people gathered at the tables. The tables were camping tables with benches attached, Ophelia realized. They were apparently serving as a temporary security center for Brenden.

  Even in the low light in the cave, Nayara’s hair glowed a burnished, luxurious red, but she looked worn and tired. She wore plain black. Black boots, black trousers and a black shirt.

  “You need to rest,” Ophelia told her judiciously.

  “So do us all,” Nayara assured her. “In a week, you will feel the same.”

  “Rob tried to tell me some of it.” Ophelia nodded toward the highlander, who was on his feet now. “Thank you, by the way.”

  He thrust his sword back into its scabbard. “When you turned and ran towards the Northmen, that was true courage and the only reason the jump was a success.” He nodded his head in what was almost a formal bow. “It has been a pleasure, Ophelia. But I have a grieving wife to return to. Would you excuse me?”

  “Of course,” Ophelia responded automatically. She watched the highlander step over the rope and head toward a split in the wall that was the only exit from the cave. He removed his cloak and folded it over his arm as he went.

  She processed his parting words with something close to shock. Her eyes widened and she swiveled to look at Nayara. “Not baby Jack?” she asked. “And he still came to see me home?”

  Nayara sighed. “It’s complicated,” she said, taking Ophelia’s arm. “You have some catching up to do.”

  * * * * *

  The Agency Home Base – 2264 A.D.: It took a while for his thoughts to collate. He was content to linger in the peaceful void as sense returned to him. It look a long while for him to notice the missing pieces and even then there was no urgency to find out why they were missing...until he tried to trace back in his mind to the last coherent moment he could remember. Then it returned to him with a jolt of almost pure fear.

  “Nayara!” Ryan sat up almost before his eyes opened, reaching for his sword. He blinked, trying to pull everything into focus. It was very dark where he was.

  A fluttering shadow to his right coalesced into the wan shape of Fahmido. She bent over him, her hand on his shoulder, pressing him down again. “Rest, Ryan. Rest.”

  “What happened?”

  “You fell asleep again,” Fahmido said.

  “Again?” He cleared his throat. “Asleep? Vampires don’t sleep.” He tried to sit up despite the pressure Fahmido was exerting on his shoulder, but she seemed to be impossibly strong.

  “You’re not ready.”

  “Who are you to tell me what I can do?”

  Fahmido stepped back, letting him go. “Fine. Suit yourself.”

  “Thank you.” He thrust his legs off the narrow cot he had been lying on, onto the rock floor beneath. Cold registered on his bare feet, along with sharp edges of the shale-splintered floor. He stood up, then waivered as weakness spread through him in a hot wave.

  He fell back onto the cot, looking at his hands and legs, as if they were strange limbs grafted to him. “How long have I been...what happened to me?” he asked Fahmido.

  She had her back to him, working at something on a mobile cart. When she turned to face him, she held a thick positive-pressure syringe of blood. Real blood. The sight of it set up a keening need in him. It was so strong that his fangs descended and his senses swam as the symbiot fought for control of him in a mindless bid for survival.

  “I’ll inject straight into your artery,” she told him. “It’ll quiet the symbiot.”

  “Hurry,” he croaked, clutching the rough material folded over the frame of the cot with both hands and willing himself to stay focused. To stay in control.

  As the fresh blood circled, the symbiot quietened. Gradually, he could feel its frantic grip ease.

  “Can you hear me now?” Fahmido asked.

  “Yes.” He was shocked at the weaknesses in his voice.

  “Can you stand, now?”

  He got to his feet, moving slowly. His weakness was alarming but he managed to stay on his feet. He swallowed. “I suppose I can,” he announced.

  Fahmido studied him with an intense stare, then nodded. “You should rest...but so should we all. I’ve called for—”

  “Ryan.” It was Nayara’s voice. He looked up to find her in the curtained doorway.

  “There she is,” Fahmido finished.

  Ryan feasted on the sight of her as Nayara stepped into the ‘room’ created by the convergence of two walls of rock and an old tarpaulin strung across the wider end. She studied him with the same intensity as Fahmido and exchanged glances with the albino woman.

  “As far as I can tell, nothing seems to be wrong with him, now,” Fahmido said. “But then, I could find nothing wrong with him when he woke before, either.”

  “Thank you,” Nayara told her. “Could I have the room?”

  Fahmido nodded and stepped out past the tarpaulin. It drew Ryan’s attention beyond the flimsy barrier. He could hear people speaking in low tones, the sound of industry; digital equipment humming, the tap of old-fashioned keyboards.

  “This is the second time I’ve slept?”

  “You don’t remember the first time?”

  Ryan frowned, trying to think back beyond the terrifying blankness that occupied his imm
ediate memories. “There’s something….” He shook his head.

  “Do you remember me bringing you here? From Cáel’s island, two weeks ago?” she asked.

  Ryan rubbed his fingers through his hair, trying to distract himself from the hard knot of tension building in his chest and stomach. He thought of Cáel, of the island retreat. Heat, sun, the dappled shade of the quiet patio. A painful goodbye. “I remember,” he admitted. “How could I forget?” He made himself look at Nia. Her fingers were touching the base of her throat, where his pendant had rested for so many years. Cáel wore it now.

  “If you remember that, then the rest will return, I’m sure,” she told him. “You fell asleep, if sleep it was, three days after I brought you here. You slept for four days. Four days after that, you slept again.”

  “How long did I sleep this time?” Ryan asked. He cleared his throat as it tightened.

  “Three days.” Nayara delivered the fact with her arms crossed and her gaze steady.

  “Three…” He drew in a breath. “The cycle is diminishing each time,” he observed. “And the interval is lengthening.”

  “Then you believe it is an effect from being hit by Gabriel’s weapon. That is the conclusion Fahmido reached, too.” She looked at him oddly.

  “I remember Gabriel’s weapon,” he assured her.

  Nayara turned and reached up to a metal shelf bolted right onto the rough wall, and brought down a long, rifle-shaped weapon. She rested the butt against the floor and held it by the tip of the barrel. “Recognize this?”

  “No, but under the circumstances, I’d say this is the weapon Gabriel used against me. Who took it from him?”

  “No one. Justin found the weapon lying on the floor of the station, at the very last moment just before the station blew. He picked it up because he thought it might be useful as none of his normal fighting skills were helping him.” Her full lips turned down. “That was before he got a good look at it.”

  “Why? What is wrong with it?”

  Nayara flipped the rifle up with expert moves and nestled it into her shoulder, aiming at him. Before Ryan could do more that widen his eyes, she pulled the trigger. There was a dry click and nothing else. “Look at the tip of the barrel,” she husked, still sighting along the length of it. Her single green eye visible above the rifle was somber.

  Ryan looked at the barrel, then reached for it. “It’s solid!”

  Nayara let him take the weapon. He laid it across his knees, examining it. “It’s shaped correctly, but it clearly was never intended to be a working gun,” he mused, operating the simplified trigger. “It won’t even crack open, so no shells, no ammunition....” He rubbed his temple hard, trying to recall when Gabriel had fired the weapon. “My back was turned,” he said. “I didn’t see what hit me.”

  “I saw,” Nayara said quietly. “And it was nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No projectile. No plasma. Nothing that is normally projected by weapons of this nature, in today’s world.”

  “No weapons we knew of until now,” Ryan finished. “We have to find out what this does. Maybe it’s dead like a battery and that’s why Gabriel gave it up. Unless we know how to recharge it, it’s a blunt object of normal lethalness.”

  Nayara nodded. “Figuring that out is keeping Brenden occupied in the few moments he has spare.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Ryan said. “We’re supposed to be invincible. We have been virtually invincible for centuries.” He touch the rifle. “This…whatever it is…will have scared Brenden in a way that Ophelia and her temper never has.”

  Nayara straightened up from her lean against the rocky wall. “Do you feel up to some light exercise?”

  “I’ve been lying around flat on my back for four days. I think exercise is mandatory,” Ryan growled.

  “It’s not like your muscles can atrophy. Your symbiot will see to that,” Nia teased him. “But I have a senior staff meeting and I wouldn’t mind the moral support, if you care to join me.”

  “Since when did you need help herding those hell-raisers?” Ryan asked, but he pressed against the edge of the thin mattress, lifting himself back onto his feet. His symbiot had been working hard in the last few minutes he had emerged from whatever state he had been in for the last three days, for he could feel strength and energy flowing through him. He would have to feed soon, but Fahmido’s injection would hold him for a few hours more.

  Nia’s lack of response made him look at her once more. She had a grim, sad look on her face.

  “What?” he asked. “Why do you look like that? What am I missing?”

  “Everything has changed, Ryan. You’ve only really been here for three days so you haven’t had a chance to see it.” She bit her lip and Ryan realized that more than simple sadness was driving her.

  “We used to sit in our station and despair about how unfair life was, about how mean humans were and how hard we had it. Then Gabriel came along and took so much away from us that we didn’t know we had. We all look at each other and wonder, now. We all watch each other. We can’t have humans here because they’ll give us away to the Psi…and I liked having humans among us.”

  Ryan reached for the cane he still needed for balance when he was walking. He was getting steadier on his feet, but it still wasn’t a complete given that his balance wouldn’t desert him from moment to moment, leaving him giddy and reeling.

  He shuffled over to Nia and pulled her against him with his one free arm. “Stop it,” he told her. “Stop.”

  Her arms wrapped around his neck and held on hard. “Everyone we trust and who likes us, we’ve had to send away into the past because that’s where it’s safest for them. It’s like Gabriel has forced us to punish those who are closest to us. He took baby Jack and he took away everything we value, all in one night.”

  Ryan lifted her chin. “We still have each other,” he told her. “All of us has each other. We’ll get the rest back.”

  Nia looked childlike with her bewildered expression. It made him add, “I promise, Nia. We’ll get everyone back here in the time they belong and we’ll see it all be as wonderful as it was, even if I have to move a few planets to do it.”

  Chapter Two

  Liping Village, East Yunnan Province, China, 2054 A.D.: The perfectly symmetry of the arches and angles on the ancient bridge spanning the river was made for contemplation. So were the vistas of mountains, streams, wooded valleys and peaceful glens that sheltered terracotta-tiled rounded and arched homesteads and hideaways, all as ancient and peaceful-looking as the bridge.

  They were all engineered and designed to invoke calm and a meditative state and the effect was utterly wasted upon Deonne as she strode across the span of bridge, heading for the meandering path that would eventually lead her to the big round farmhouse structure where she would, she hoped, find Mariana.

  Deonne knew she was striding. She knew she was angry. She also knew that every postcard-worthy vignette she saw as she made her way across the village was having the opposite effect on her than the one the village elders and their environmental design consultants had intended. The placid peace wasn’t imparting calm and serenity. It was just pissing her off.

  She wanted to stomp like a child but stomping would just slow her down. Besides, the bridge, while it looked like it was made of fragile, ancient wood beams, was actually made of plasteel and was likely to outlast vampires. She could stomp until the sun set and get nothing but bruises for her efforts.

  Besides, there was no one around to see her stomping and stomping in flat shoes didn’t have nearly the same effect as stamping her feet while wearing heels.

  She swung off the bridge and onto the worn, wide sandy path, into the shade of the big old trees that hung over the river here. The water gurgled along the bank, sounding cheerful and Deonne glared at it, determined not to let it improve her mood.

  The big house where many of the Agency people were still staying looked like a centuries old farmhouse on the outside.
It had the same big circular ochre-colored walls as many of the genuinely old buildings in the area, with a handful of smaller buildings grouped inside the protective walls, all of them topped off with the faded, curved terracotta tiles.

  The narrow, intricately-carved double doors with their dragon’s mouth handles were thrown wide open in welcome and lay flat against the walls like shutters. Deonne walked through them into the tiny compound and directly over to the door of the room where Mariana had set up office.

  Deonne rested her hand on the green round handle and took a deep breath. Then she pushed the door open and stepped through.

  Mariana was at her desk. As usual. She looked up as Deonne entered and smiled. “Why, you look ever so lovely this morning!”

  Deonne tried to smile. “Thank you.” She let her gaze flicker over Mariana’s appearance. Even though they were nearly two hundred years in the past, the woman seemed to have made no attempt to be stylish, even here where she had the resources of an entire wardrobe department to call upon. She wore the same three basic outfits the Agency wardrobe department had supplied her with when they had first arrived and kept her hair pulled back in the same unadorned braid that did nothing to flatter her face.

  Mariana smiled briefly again. “Is there something you need, Deonne?”

  Deonne pushed the sleeves of her jacket up. In this decade the sleeves were wide and anything but practical, but they did have a pretty effect when the arm was raised. But for right now they were in the way. “That moronic neighbor of mine is at it again.”

  Mariana frowned for a moment. “The lute player?”

  Deonne breathed hard. “It isn’t a lute! It’s a…whatever you call it. An erhu. And a whole flocking Chinese opera to go along with it. He was sawing away on it at three a.m., Mariana! Three a.m.”

  Mariana pressed her fingertip against her lips. “Did you ask him to stop?” she said.

  “Of course I asked him to stop!” Deonne pushed her fingers against her temples. “He doesn’t speak common. Or any language I know and I don’t speak Chinese. Any dialect. I pounded on the wall that separates our apartments, but apparently sign language isn’t a common language either.”