Kiss Across Worlds (Kiss Across Time Book 7) Read online

  “You said it was a shipment. Now you’re talking about a train?” Brody said.

  “A train from Božidarko, to the Black Sea. A freighter from there to the Crimean Peninsula, then the containers will be hauled by lorries to Moscow.”

  “Wait,” Taylor said, holding up her hand and frowning. “Are you telling me that the slaves are already there? In Serbia?”

  “They have been there for weeks,” Elle said. “They’re held somewhere on Kristijan Zoric’s estate. I don’t know where. The crime syndicates in Europe capture tourists, enemies, anyone they can scoop up with minimal fuss and Kristijan has been paying cash on the nailhead for each person sent to him. He has been….” Elle’s mouth turned down.

  “Stockpiling them,” Neven said. His voice was hoarse.

  “Yes. Until he has a full shipment.”

  “Gods…!” Marit breathed. She was pale.

  Neven saw movement from the corner of his eye and looked around, towards the kitchen door. Sydney and Alex were moving into the room, silently and swiftly as only vampires could move. Rafe followed them.

  Veris raised his brow. “Sydney, Alex, we’ll have to catch you up.” He looked at Elle again. “You’re asking us to deliberately change the future.”

  “Yes.”

  Veris breathed deeply. “It goes against everything we’ve learned about time. Everything that Neven has explained to us further increases my reluctance. If this timeline is to end, then it ends. That is our fate, isn’t it? My counterpoints in other timelines get to live a full life. Just not me.”

  “Perhaps I did not explain myself well,” Elle said. “When I said there was mass extinction, I did not mean just on this time line. I meant, across most of them on this side on the continuum. If you can halt the disaster, in this single timeline, where there is a second Zoric who can stop Usenko, then this time line alone will go on and begin to generate its own splits and repopulate the alternatives. This is the only timeline that has the opportunity to do so.”

  Alex cleared his throat. “Not that I understand why we’re talking about changing the future, but given the dire consequences if we don’t try, perhaps this is one occasion when we should consider it?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time you have deliberately changed the future, would it, Alexander Karim?” Elle said.

  “I know you?” Alex asked blankly.

  “You will,” Elle assured him.

  “I’ll explain later, Alex. When my brain isn’t spinning on its stalk,” Brody told him, speaking quietly.

  Veris was shaking his head. “I don’t care what the personal gains are. Fucking with the future has never worked for us. We’ve been dead lucky more than once and survived. There are people in my life now that I refuse to put at risk.”

  “You are already risking them, Veris Gerhardsson,” Elle said calmly.

  “How am I doing that?” he shot back, his jaw flexing.

  “I didn’t want to tell you this until you had agreed. However, I can see your mind is made up.”

  “Tell me what?” Veris demanded.

  “Your son, Aran, is on that train,” she told him.

  Chapter Four

  It had been pretty easy to ditch both Alannah and Neven. Aran drove through downtown Edgartown and out towards the harbor parking lot. He could park the car there and not rouse suspicions. Tourists parked there all the time.

  Athair’s plain Mustang had smoked glass, which would help him jump away without anyone witnessing it. Aran parked the car, pocketed the keys and cleared his mind the way Marit had taught him, focusing as carefully and clearly as he could on his destination. Božidarko was already well-and-truly bookmarked, but he’d learned how easy it was for jumps to go wrong.

  One night, not long after Aran had discovered he could jump, Athair had sat him down and told him about how he had fucked up one of the simplest jumps back home. He and Far and Mom had ended up in Constantinople in the sixth century, when Athair had been a slave and human.

  Aran knew Athair had told him the story, complete with vivid and bloody details, including the way he had died in the chariot arena, as a way of warning him about the dangers. The story had done its work. Now, Aran was always scrupulously careful about positioning himself at the start of a jump.

  He looked around the parking lot. No one was looking at him. No one cared. This was the ordinary Mustang, not Athair’s precious Maserati, which would have made people look twice, even here on exclusive Martha’s Vineyard.

  Aran breathed deeply, calming himself. He thought of Božidarko as it would have been a few hours ago, only minutes after he and Neven had jumped back here. The October afternoon would be bright with sunlight and warm for the time of year. People would be thronging the market square. The thugs had left. Neven had left. Dajana would still be there, controlling the distribution of the cheese samples for her father.

  Aran thought of her big eyes and her smile. Neven believed Aran couldn’t talk to Dajana. Only, she spoke modern Greek nearly as smoothly as Aran did and after the fuss that afternoon, he had stolen a couple of quick moments with her and she had asked him to meet her after the fair was done for the day.

  The sun would be lowering towards the horizon and the chill would be setting in. It wouldn’t do to jump to the square itself. There were too many witnesses. Aran thought of the little dead spot just beyond the square, where three houses almost met at the corner, leaving a little odd-shaped space filled with dirt and neglect. It was not a space that could ever occur in landscaped and designed American suburbs.

  Aran jumped. He didn’t need to physically jump anymore. He thought himself across the timescape and his body was pulled there. That was something else he had taught himself. Even with time jumps, now, he could take his body with him, which was something that Mom and his dads didn’t know was possible.

  Alannah and he had figured out that was how they had been able to take their cellphones with them to Panormos, to take a photo of Far when he and Uncle Rafe were on the ship heading to Constantinople. They had been able to move them and their bodies because Aran had actually made the jump, not Alan, as everyone else had thought at the time. It was something he could do that Alan, so far, had been unable to do.

  The dusty little corner was rank with dirt and litter and remains best left undisturbed. Aran picked his way out of the tight space, easing past the corners of the houses and out into the street, just beyond the start of the square. He brushed himself off, listening to the murmur of people in the square itself. The street was nearly deserted and the street lights were starting to turn on. It was sunset, already.

  Better and better, Aran told himself. All sorts of things could happen when the lights went down.

  He hurried to the square itself and over to the corner where Dajan’s table had been. Most of the tables in the square had been stripped of their wares and the owners had gone home. The tables remained, bare plywood tops sitting on fold-up stands. Tomorrow, the fair would continue.

  Dajana was still at the table, packing up the last of the boxed-up cheeses into insulated packs to carry back home. She had told him she lived at the south end of the village, which was the high end. Walking up the stairs in the streets took all Aran’s wind, while Dajana seemed to be able to skip up them and still keep talking.

  She smiled when she saw him. “Stevan! You did come back.”

  “I said I would, didn’t I?” He shifted into Greek barely without thinking about it.

  “What’s this?” came another voice out of the dark. A shadow moved away from the wall, detaching itself. The man strolled over to the table.

  Aran took in the man’s black coat and the bulge under his arm and swallowed. This was one of Kristijan’s men. Aran thought they had all gone back to the estate.

  These guys were killers. Neven had told him they had all been soldiers, once. They had been part of the Yugoslav Army and also members of the Jackals paramilitary group. Now they worked for Kristijan. If the rumors were true, they h
ad not changed their ways all that much.

  “You speak Greek like a native, boy,” the man said. He had a round face, deep olive skin and he needed to shave. He looked like one of those men who would have to shave at least twice a day to look clean cut. His eyes were surrounded by folds of flesh. Yet intelligence gleamed in his eyes, too. He had spoken in Greek and it was clear, and accented.

  “I’m not Greek,” Aran assured him, for some Serbians still didn’t like the Greeks for their role in the NATO bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo war. They didn’t like any of the NATO countries, come to that. Only, Greece wasn’t all that far away, while America was on the other side of the world.

  The man cocked his head, looked Aran up and down. He spoke something in rapid Serbian. Dajana answered quickly, her tone urgent and pleading. He held up a fat hand, silencing her. His gaze didn’t move away from Aran.

  Aran swallowed again. “I don’t speak Serbian,” he said, sticking with Greek. The one downside of being able to jump laterally and take his body with him was that he didn’t arrive in local dress, nor did he just know the local language. He had acquired both ancient and modern Greek via direct time jumps. At least the man understood Greek.

  “You’re not Serbian,” the man said, in Greek. “You’re not Greek. What are you, then?”

  “ Gospodine Dragović, he’s just a student, working through Europe. ” Dajana also spoke in Greek.

  “A stranger. A tourist to our town,” Dragović said slowly. “Yet you think you can talk to our people, our beautiful women?”

  Aran’s heart was already beating heavily. Now it seemed to squeeze to a stop. It felt as if the ground was shifting under him, too quickly for him to keep his balance. He had thought Dragović was offended by his nationality. Now the man was apparently pissed about him talking to Božidarko ladies.

  “I was just passing the time,” Aran said carefully. “I meant no offence. I should be getting back to my…hostel,” he added desperately. “Dajana, thank you for your kindness in telling me how to get back there. I think I know the way now.” He took a step backwards.

  Dragović’s hand shot out and gripped Aran’s arm with a strength that ground the muscles in his arm against the bones and tendons. It hurt. Aran hissed. High singing sounded in his mind, now. Alarm, adrenaline, fear, all mixed up together, making him feel a little sick.

  He could hear his mother’s voice. It was a memory of something she had once said. Don’t lose your head. If you can think, you can win. You just have to outthink the opposition. There is always a way.

  If he stayed calm and didn’t panic, he could talk his way out of this. Fear was making it hard to concentrate, though. He wished Far and Athair were here. The two of them standing shoulder to shoulder behind him would fix this instantly. They would glare and this smelly man would let go of Aran’s arm and all would be well. Except they weren’t here. Wishing like an eight-year-old for them to come and save him wasn’t going to change anything.

  Briefly, Aran thought of jumping right out of the square from where he was, right now. There were too many people who would see him disappear, though. It had been drummed into him over and over, that they must keep what they could do hidden from the rest of the world at all times, no matter what.

  That gave Aran his answer. This man could threaten or even push him around a bit. Eventually, though, he would leave and Aran would be free to go, too. If the man took Aran somewhere—even to beat him up—Aran would be able to find a moment when no one was looking and jump out that way.

  If he waited, the chance would come. He just had to watch for it.

  Some of his fear evaporated. He looked at the man and realized the smell was nicotine and alcohol, mixed up in a deadly fume that poured off him in waves. Aran blinked his eyes as they stung in reaction.

  “You’re no student,” the man said with complete certainty. He figured the suede of Aran’s jacket. “No student dresses as you do. You’re not even wearing a teeshirt.”

  Aran didn’t look down at his chest. The checkered button-down shirt was pretty casual, although it wasn’t a typical student uniform. His heart gave another tiny squeeze.

  “Dragović, you let him go!” Dajana cried, coming around the table. Her voice was strident. Angry, even.

  Aran held up his hand, trying to make her stop, as his heart leapt in fear for her. “It’s fine. We’re just talking.” He even managed a smile, although his arm was starting to lose feeling beneath Dragović’s grip.

  Dragović shook his arm. “Who are you?” he demanded suspiciously.

  “No one,” Aran told him truthful. “I just stopped to say hello to Dajana and thank her for helping me this afternoon. That’s all.” It was the flimsiest of lies. If there even was a hostel in the village, when they checked with the hostel they would find out in ten seconds he wasn’t registered there. He had no luggage and the ID in his wallet said he was American, with a name that wasn’t the one he had given Dajana.

  This had moved beyond a pleasant interlude, or even a moment of tension. Dragović considered him with his piggy eyes. “I think you are lying,” he said slowly.

  Aran knew he was lying. “Really,” he said, one last time. “I’m completely and utterly harmless. I don’t even like guns.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. He knew that even as it came out of his mouth.

  Dragović’s grip tightened even more than Aran had thought was possible and he bit back his groan of pain.

  “You and I are going to have a little chat,” Dragović said. “Maybe, I even give you to the boss to talk to and he doesn’t like talking, so if your answers don’t make me happy, I will tell him it is your fault he must be disturbed tonight.” He turned and dragged Aran with him.

  Aran tried to dig in his heels. “Honestly, I’m not lying!”

  It was no use. The man outweighed him by a good eighty pounds, despite Aran’s extra inches. He was going to be dragged along behind him no matter what he did. He couldn’t jump while the man held on to him like this, even if he dared to jump in such a public place. He had to find a way to get Dragović to drop his grip, even for a moment.

  “Don’t you dare!” Dajana cried. She threw herself at Dragović, her small fists walloping his shoulder and arm. She wasn’t afraid. She was pissed. Aran admired her courage.

  Dragović grabbed Dajana’s arm, too. “You protect him, hey?” he asked, his voice low.

  Say no, Aran begged Dajana in his mind. Let her have the smarts to understand she must deny there was anything between them except for a most superficial exchange of pleasantries that strangers used. If they even began to suspect that Aran had been trying to chat her up for weeks now, it would confirm in their minds that he was a person of interest.

  “You’re being mean! You’re a brute! Stevan hasn’t done anything! I asked him to come back, do you hear? It was me!”

  Dragović shook her. Aran knew how strong he was. He could hear Dajana’s teeth chatter as they knocked together with the force of the man’s shaking. She gave a small cry, abruptly cut off and brought her free hand to her mouth and touched the corner of it. Her fingers came away bloody and she stared at them.

  Aran could see the fear take her. It overwhelmed her, blanking out thought. Now she understands, he told himself, mentally sighing. It was too late to undo the damage, though.

  “Both of you,” Dragović said. “You’re in it together.”

  “I hardly know her,” Aran protested, although he knew Dragović wouldn’t listen. An innocent person would protest, though.

  The man worked his lips and tongue and teeth, then sent out a piercing whistle. Aran winced at the sound.

  Someone called out from beyond the square and the few people still pulling down their stalls turned their heads to look. They saw Dragović and went back to their business, their backs turned.

  Running feet sounded. Heavy feet. Then three more of Kristijan’s men came jogging into the square. They saw Dragović and hurried over.

 
; A fast discussion was held in Serbian. Dajana listened and her face filled with alarm. She protested, tugging on the man’s grip on her arm. If he was squeezing her as hard as he was digging his fingers into Aran’s arm, then her tugging had to hurt like hell.

  “What’s happening? What did he say?” Aran asked Dajana.

  “They’re going to take both of us to the estate,” Dajana said. “People don’t come back, when they go there! My uncle never returned. My friends. We can’t go there, Stevan. We can’t!”

  Before Aran could reply, the men that Dragović had whistled up gripped both his arms and Dajana’s, too. Aran looked around the square, trying to catch someone’s eye. If he screamed and protested enough, then someone would step in, wouldn’t they?

  Except no one was there. In the last few minutes, since the men had come running into the square, everyone else had melted away. All that remained was the gathering dark. Even the street lights, nailed at the corners of building roofs, were too far away to expose Dragović.

  They were being hauled towards the narrow street that ran off the square, the one that led directly out of town. Dajana was crying now and begging Dragović in a hoarse voice.

  Aran realized that his plan to jump away as soon as he got the chance was useless now. He’d got Dajana into this. Now he had to stay and get her out, too.

  * * * * *

  Everyone streamed back to the lounge area one by one, where Elle remained by the fire and Marit sat watching her. Neven lingered there, guilt keeping him anchored. The need to rush off and look for Aran as everyone else had was powerful, only it wouldn’t achieve anything. He didn’t have a car and couldn’t tear up the gravel drive as Brody and Veris had done, the Maserati’s engine screaming. He needed to talk to both of them, so he waited for their return.