Kiss Across Worlds (Kiss Across Time Book 7) Page 6

  “Aran is nowhere that I can find,” Rafe reported, for he was the first to come back. “Sydney and Alex and I don’t know the house and all the buildings well, so that doesn’t mean much.”

  “He would have come out if he were hiding somewhere, when you called,” Marit told him.

  Alex and Sydney were next. They just shook their heads.

  Taylor came in and sat on the big square Ottoman, her legs at awkward angles, as she prodded at her phone with furious taps. “Nothing. Not in his bedroom, not in the lounge upstairs, not in the study. He’s not answering his phone.”

  Marit sat next to her and put her arm around her waist. “We’ll find him, Mom.”

  Alannah was the next one to arrive. She sat on the edge of the sofa cushions, her phone gripped in her hands.

  Taylor looked up at Elle. “He is really on that train? He’s…captive?”

  Elle nodded. Her eyes were grave. She said nothing.

  Taylor moaned and closed her eyes.

  Alannah burst into tears and rushed away again, her noisy sobs fading as she climbed the stairs.

  Neven said nothing. What could he say? The man who was him had done this. No excuse would could ever justify it. Nothing he said could make it better.

  Actions were the only defining facts.

  The Maserati returned thirty minutes later, moving far more slowly than when it had left.

  Veris and Brody came into the house and the room seemed to shrink around them.

  Neven got to his feet.

  “We found the Mustang,” Brody said shortly. “At the harbor. Nowhere near the festival that Aran told Neven he was going to.”

  “He lied,” Alex said. “Why?”

  “He went back to Serbia. To Božidarko,” Neven made himself say.

  Everyone looked at him. Veris grew still, his gaze sharp.

  “There is a girl there,” Neven said. “He has been trying to talk to her for…a while.”

  Brody swore and looked at Veris. “Božidarko is crawling with gangsters and criminals. They’re all in the trade, there. He must have gone back and got into trouble in some way.”

  Veris nodded. His jaw was working, yet he said nothing.

  “If we try to get him back, what will we change?” Brody added. “How much of the future gets fucked up?”

  “We can’t go and get him,” Veris said.

  Taylor lifted her head. “We have to!” She scrambled to her feet. “I want my son back. Don’t try to stop me, Veris. If you dare speak of not changing timelines, I will…I will…” She shook her head. “Just…don’t stop me,” she finished weakly.

  Veris folded onto the sofa and put his face in his hands. His shoulders shook.

  Brody gathered Taylor up in his arms and held her, his cheek against her hair.

  “I’ll go to Serbia,” Neven said. “I’ll get him back.”

  Marit looked at Neven with the same sharp scrutiny her father had just used.

  Veris scrubbed at his face with his hands, then looked at him, too. “You can’t.” His voice was hoarse.

  “I can. Why shouldn’t I?” Neven asked, fighting to keep his tone reasonable. “I am the only one who can do this. It’s only the past we need to worry about changing. If Elle wasn’t here and hadn’t told us what the future was like, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. We would go and get him. Let’s do that.”

  Veris swallowed, his throat working. His face was impassive. Neven suspected the light in his eyes was tightly dammed hope. Neven added the final inducement. “I’m going, whether you help me or not. I would much rather have your help.”

  Brody kept Taylor’s face hidden against his shoulder, his hand in her hair. His own was filled with acute misery. “Whatever we can do,” he said flatly. “Name it.”

  “Brody…” Veris began.

  “No.” Brody shook his head. “I don’t care what this does to the timescape. Fuck time. I want Aran back. If I have to break every natural law to do it, I will. And so will you, Veris, so just shut the fuck up and help Neven do this.”

  Veris looked at Brody and Taylor for a long moment. Then he got to his feet and wrapped his arms around both of them. He turned his head to look at Neven. His eyes were bleak. “We’ll help. Whatever it takes.”

  Neven looked at Elle. “What do I need to do?”

  Chapter Five

  Neven let his gaze wander over the windows once more. On both sides of the lounge and on every pane, down to knee-height, were plastered photos, documents, notes and notations. The entire household had spent an hour printing and pasting. The storyboard was supposed to help him absorb the details of Kristijan Zoric’s life. All it was doing was making him feel overwhelmed.

  He had thought he knew a lot about the other Kristijan. Weeks of reading Jovan’s excellent reports and watching from a distance had given him what he thought was a good understanding of Kristijan Zoric, even if he didn’t understand how the man could live this way.

  The panes of windows plastered with paper and photos and more proved he didn’t know nearly as much as he thought.

  Everyone else was moving around the room, too. Marit had thrust a cup of coffee into Neven’s hands not long ago. Now she was drinking her own cup. Alannah was sitting in the corner of the sofa, her eyes red and downcast. She had refused coffee. No one else needed or could drink the stuff.

  On the cushions on the other end of the sofa lay Liberty, Alex, Rafe’s and Sydney’s little girl. She was fast asleep, her back to the cushions, her thumb in her mouth. Deeply black, thick lashes lay against her olive cheeks. Someone had dropped a light blanket over her and every now and again Sydney would come and check on her. The noise in the room and the voices didn’t seem to be disturbing Liberty’s sleep at all.

  “It’s deep in the night for her,” Sydney had explained when she saw Neven studying her curiously. “Only, it will be morning soon in Spain and I don’t want her to wake and find us gone.” She had brought her to the house shortly after everyone in the big room had looked to Veris for directions on how to prepare Neven for the big deception.

  Elle had left not long after that. She had seemed a little bit sad, yet determined. “This is not my place and time,” she told Veris, when he suggested she stay and help. “I have put you on the path. Now you must find your own way forward and I must return to my own time.”

  She had jumped away not long after that. By then, everyone was so busy they barely noticed. Neven suspected he was the only one to regret she was gone. Elle had been a part of his formation as an adult. She had inducted him into the world of travelers.

  Every laptop in the house was set up on the coffee table or was sitting on the owner’s knees. Every cellphone was also in use. Veris had personally spoken to Jovan in Macedonia. Jovan was the vampire who had completed all the original research on Kristijan. Veris was tapping him on the shoulder again, for anything else he might know that would help them.

  Now that the decision had been made and everyone had turned their backs on the morals of screwing with time, Veris was a powerhouse of energy and drive. As usual, he was directing everyone. However, he was a good leader and had systematically arranged for a complete brain dump of everything they knew about Kristijan.

  It had been Alex’s idea to paste everything on the windows, for everyone to examine. “When you’re mulling over things, it helps to have all the facts that might affect the decision there where you can see them in one glance. Diagnostics works when you take everything into account.”

  Veris had been walking slowly up and down the windows, studying the documentation, while the last of it was printing out and Rafe and Brody taped it up.

  Veris tapped the photo of Remi De Sauveterre with one big knuckle. “This man is the key.”

  “To what?” Neven asked.

  “Elle said Kristijan was dead,” Brody said. “If that’s true, then how did he die?” He was looking at Neven. “You were there this morning.”

  Neven could feel his cheek
s heating. He had been forced to confess how often he had been there. They needed to know. They also had to know everything he had learned while jumping to Serbia. Veris and Brody had not exploded the way Rafe had guessed they would. They had brushed it off.

  Now Brody was circling back to it. “You said that Remi De Sauveterre was walking around with Kristijan’s men as if nothing had changed.”

  Neven nodded. “He was.”

  “If Kristijan is dead or missing, then wouldn’t it be natural for his second-in-charge to jump up and down about that?” Veris asked. “Instead, he feeds stray kittens.”

  “And knocks people out with beer bottles,” Rafe added.

  Alex was standing in front of De Sauveterre’s profile. “The man apparently doesn’t need a gun. Not if any object sitting nearby can become a lethal projectile.”

  “If he’s acting as if nothing has changed, maybe he had something to do with Kristijan’s disappearance,” Veris added.

  “You think he killed Kristijan?” Neven asked.

  “Maybe. He wouldn’t be the first senior lieutenant to stage a coup in order to grab all the power and money for themselves,” Veris replied. “That makes him the key, because we can’t predict what he will do when he sees you, apparently back from the dead.”

  “Unless he doesn’t know Kristijan is dead,” Sydney pointed out, as she fought to unfold tape that had stuck to itself.

  “Even if the guy is just missing, he’s been gone for over two weeks,” Taylor said. “That’s got to be long enough for even the most slovenly second-in-command to raise an alarm of some sort. As he hasn’t, it means De Sauveterre knows where Kristijan is, or what has happened to him. Either way, you turning up is going to surprise him.”

  “This is a man who doesn’t like surprises,” Veris added. “Jovan is pretty certain he’s a vampire, just like Kristijan. He could never get close enough to confirm either of them.”

  “They have padding around them,” Neven said. “The padding wears guns.”

  “Either way,” Veris continued. “He’s been running Kristijan’s organization for him for a long time, which implies a high level of trust between the two. Which means De Sauveterre would be in on everything that Kristijan is involved in. Including the shipment.” He paused, his throat working.

  Everyone was referring to the train of captives as the “shipment”, to take the human factor out of it. It allowed them to think strategically and deal with Aran’s fate dispassionately while they made their plans.

  Veris cleared his throat and went on. “When you’re in there trying to cancel the shipment, Neven, you’re going to have to dismantle De Sauveterre’s objections. You’re going to have to have solid business reasons for backing out of the arrangement.”

  “Could I just say I’ve changed my mind?”

  “Again, you’ll need reasons. This is Kristijan’s most trusted, long-term lieutenant, remember.”

  Neven nodded, studying the grainy image of Remi De Sauveterre. Like most of the photos they had, this one had been taken by a long telephoto lens, from far away. It was as clear as the distance could make it, which meant it was fuzzy.

  Alex was still staring at the man’s profile. “He’s military. Black ops, I presume, as he doesn’t show up in any military records.”

  “French origins,” Rafe added. “The New Orleans he claims as his birthplace might be a work-around, especially if he is Blood.”

  “Which means he came out of France,” Veris added.

  “You say that as though its significant,” Neven pointed out.

  “Few vampires survived the French Revolution,” Brody said. “Almost none, in fact. France has been a black hole for the Blood ever since. Most think the country is tainted and avoid it. The folklore and the superstitions work against the Blood. The French who remember their traditions know how to spot them and what to do with them when they do.”

  “There were just as many vampires put to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror as there were French peerage,” Alex said. “The guillotine was an effective execution method for the Blood, which is why they used it.”

  “Most of the Blood was part of the nobility,” Veris said. “If De Sauveterre emerged from that, he’s a high-caliber survivor.”

  “Survivor enough to kill his boss and grab the power?” Brody asked.

  “Maybe,” Veris said. His gaze met Neven’s. “We’re going to have to figure out a way to stop De Sauveterre from dealing with Kristijan a second time.”

  “You don’t need anything,” Alex said sharply. “I don’t care how much of a bad-ass survivor the Frenchman is. When Kristijan returns from the dead and the missing, he’s going to rethink his rebellion, especially if Neven acts as if De Sauveterre is still faithful and innocent. He’ll think he’s safely in the clear and will go back to normal.”

  Veris nodded. “He’ll subside long enough for you to halt the shipment and get the hell out of there. That’s all you need.”

  “I think it’s Usenko that Neven is going to have to worry about,” Sydney said, from the other side of the room. She tapped the window in front of her. “He’s psychotic, at least. Sociopathic, maybe even psychopathic.”

  Neven sighed.

  “He never moves out of Russia,” Veris said dismissively. “He’s cautious, that way. Neven should never have to deal with him face to face.”

  Sydney shook her head. “Neven will have to deal with him and he’ll need to know how. Usenko grew up in the USSR. As an adult, he embraced capitalism, probably because it was the complete opposite of communism. Then there are the scars on his arms.”

  “What about them?” Taylor asked curiously. “I saw them, too. In that photo in front of you.” She shivered.

  Neven had seen the photo as well. Most of the other images of Usenko showed a white-blond crew-cut man wearing three piece suits and sunglasses. This was the only shot of Usenko without sleeves—a picture of him on a luxury yacht, in swim trunks and a short-sleeved shirt. The scars ran up the inside of both arms, looking pink, shiny and stretched, as old scars did.

  “Jovan thinks he got the scars when he was a kid. From hugging a burning oil drum for warmth, then falling asleep against it.” Sydney shook her head. “That’s motive, right there, for some pretty serious mentally scaring, too. He grew up so poor, he had to fight to stay warm and would hug a drum of burning oil to keep it to himself, to the point where he would start frying against it.” Her mouth turned down. “As soon as Kristijan Zoric tries to back out of the shipment deal, Usenko is going to react, because he will do anything to survive. He doesn’t have to leave Russia to do that, either.”

  Veris rubbed his jaw. “You may be right,” he admitted.

  “Usenko is ruthless. More than Kristijan is. Was,” Brody added.

  Rafe pointed to the aerial photo of Božidarko. “How familiar are you with the village and the estate, Neven?”

  “Enough to know my way around,” Neven said. “The outside of the estate, anyway. I’m memorizing the floorplan, though.” He lifted the blueprints of the rambling manor house that Kristijan had built on the estate, along with the outhouses and buildings that surrounded it. “Why?”

  “You can’t just jump to the village and then walk up to the gates of the estate,” Rafe pointed out. “Kristijan Zoric would never do that. I don’t think you could jump straight into the estate, though. You don’t know it well enough.”

  “I know the front of it,” Neven pointed out.

  “The front, where all the guards and the gate is?” Veris asked.

  Neven ran a hand through his hair. “Yes,” he admitted with a sigh and let the blueprints slide back onto the coffee table.

  Alexander pushed a hand into his pants pocket and his head to one side. “How long is it since you got a decent sleep?” he asked.

  Veris glanced at Alex, then at Neven, his eyes narrowing.

  “It’s been a while,” Neven admitted. “I can fall asleep easily enough. I can’t stay asleep. I wake in t
he middle of the night and my brain won’t shut up.”

  Alex studied him, his lips slightly pursed. “Lack of stimulation will do that. You led an interesting life, before you jumped here. Now you’re safe, comfortable and have no obligations. Your brain is used to thinking hard and making critical, survival-level decisions. That’s why you can’t stay asleep. I’m surprised you’re not having nightmares as well.”

  “I am,” Neven admitted. “That’s usually why I wake up.”

  Veris crossed his arms. “We can’t send you in sleep-deprived. Your executive decision-making ability will be compromised.”

  “I think Neven’s judgement has been screwed for a while,” Rafe said softly.

  Neven flinched. He met Rafe’s gaze. Was Rafe wondering if his ill-advised jumps to Serbia were the decision of an exhausted mind?

  Maybe they were.

  Veris and Alex were looking at each other.

  “Twelve milligrams of melatonin,” Alex said. “Just enough to put him to sleep.”

  “Benzodiazepine,” Veris said. “It will absolutely work.”

  “Too addictive,” Alex replied.

  “Hypnosis, then?” Veris suggested. His tone said he was joking.

  Alex nodded. “Yes. Hypnosis. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Veris rubbed the back of his neck. “My professor-self is shuddering. Do what you think best, doctor.”

  Alex grinned. “Purist.”

  Sydney laughed.

  Veris looked at Neven. “We’re going to put you to sleep for twelve hours. You’ll wake up a new man, I guarantee it. Then, we send you in.”

  “You’re welcome to try,” Neven told them. “I’m the world’s worst hypnosis subject. I like to stay in control too much.”

  Alex smiled. “You’ve never been hypnotized by me.”

  * * * * *

  Neven woke to grim daylight. Rain tapped against the window and wind was blowing through the trees outside, with mournful, long notes.

  He sat up, discovering he was in his bed, wearing nothing. He couldn’t remember going to sleep. He couldn’t remember Alex trying to hypnotize him. He couldn’t remember much beyond telling Alex it would never work on him.