Byzantine Heartbreak (23 page)

* * * * *

The Agency satellite station. 2263 A.D.

Rob tapped Ryan on the shoulder and beckoned with a jerk of his head and Ryan found himself following the solidly-built Scot over to a dark corner of Security. He was amused by Rob’s clothing. Somewhere in the last few hours, Rob had changed into full highland kit—kilt, broadsword and boots. The sleeves of his rough linen shirt were rolled up and his hair was held back with a raw piece of leather.

Rob was obviously feeling uneasy about security, if he had returned to his roots.

Rob propped his hand on his hip, close to the hilt of the broadsword. “There’s something that has bothered me since our conversation in the kitchen a few days ago. I believe it is a possibility that the Agency has overlooked. What if the psi are also ‘mugging’ humans for their memories and not just vampires?”

“That’s not possible.”

“Why not?” Rob countered. “You’re too blinkered by ye own ethics and charters, that prevent anything other than consensual sharing of markers and memories. There’s nothing physical stopping the psi from mugging humans.”

“They wouldn’t bother with human memories. They’re short, distorted by foggy memory and overlaid by interpretation and discoloured by emotions. Of no use to anyone.”

“Then why not simply mug a vampire here? Why the elaborate deception to get Demyan back to Rome?”

“They can’t access our thoughts when the symbiot is active. They had to fake their way back into history with a traveller, before they could access his memories while he was human.”

Rob rolled his eyes. “Well, ye know now, that isn’t true. Not after last night.”

Ryan had to calm himself and think it through. “I believe only Gabriel is powerful enough to reach past the symbiot and read our minds and I think he can only do it when we’re relaxed, unaware and thinking about exactly what he wants to see in our minds. He had to prompt Nayara last night into thought paths he wanted. And he had to lull her into the right frame of mind.” Ryan curled his fingers and uncurled them. “I hope he’s that limited. He went to a lot of trouble to make sure he was in the same room and face to face with her. If he could have simply stolen into our minds at will, he would have done that from ten miles away and not risked exposure or the warning he’s given us.”

Rob frowned. “I still think you’re wrong. I think the psi were time jumping before they mugged Demyan and I think they were stealing human memories to do it. But you’re right—human memories don’t go back far at all. So the psi moved on to bigger stakes.”

“Why would they do that?” Ryan objected. “It doesn’t make any sort of sense at all.”

“Not from your perspective. But I’m the new boy around here, remember? A lot of what you do makes my eyes cross, too.”

Ryan actually laughed. It came out involuntarily. “Well, perhaps—”

A wave of nausea swept through him, making him reach out for the wall. He heard Rob’s gasp and lifted his head to see the man grip his head, squeezing his temples.

“Time wave,” Ryan croaked, as the wave shook and dumped him.

Rob sank to his knees.

Then, just as abruptly as it had arrived, it had gone.

“That wasn’t your usual minor adjustment,” Ryan gasped. He helped Rob back to his feet. “Come on. We have to hit the books, find out what has changed.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Demyan found the source error, for it was in his personal past. He stared at the screen. “I think I have it,” he said to no-one in particular. But swiftly, he was surrounded as others tried to read his screen.

“I don’t know enough about this period,” Rob said at last. “Was the Romanov gold and family jewels stolen during the early days of the Revolution?”

“No, not like this. Not at all, in my memory, although it’s possible the revolutionaries leached off bits and pieces as they took control of the palace and other royal family possessions. But this...this violent raid of the vaults, so many dead...this never happened.”

“Perhaps they were counting on the lack of organization in those early days to cover their tracks,” Brenden suggested.

“Then they screwed themselves over, didn’t they?” Pritti asked with a smile.

Brenden frowned at her.

“She means that the unsolved mystery itself is what kept the story alive and out there for us to find,” Demyan explained. “If they had stolen the gold and been caught, or if the USSR figured out who had taken it, then the mystery would be solved and the compulsion to record it and speculate over it in the history books, wouldn’t have been there and we wouldn’t have found it. They’re victims of their own success.”

“Like the
Mary Celeste
,” Rob murmured. “That ship was written about for three centuries, until they found out what happened to it. Now it’s just a footnote in history.”

Brenden nodded. “Nayara and Ryan need to know about this.” Ryan had returned to his office to use the terminal there, as everyone on active duty had taken up desks in Security. “Demyan, the com links are all overloaded right now. You go and tell them and I’ll start tracing this backward and forward and see what the consequences are.”

“I’m here,” Ryan said quietly, startling everyone. He stood at the edge of the crowd around Demyan’s terminal.

Pritti giggled. “All of you are so hidebound. So proper. I simply told him and he came.”

“Tell me what you have found,” Ryan said quietly. “How great is the change?”

“We’ve found the source,” Brenden said. “Demyan...?”

Demyan explained about the theft of the Romanov family fortune while Ryan studied the monitor and listened.

“I’ve got every documentarian I have working on current affairs, to measure the extent of the change,” Brenden finished. “This theft was only a few centuries ago...it’s possible the wave didn’t have time to pick up enough power.”

“I’ll want data and a statistical summary as soon as you can give them to me,” Ryan told him. He frowned. “There’s something about this. It’s nagging me.”

“We’re assuming it’s psi who did this?” Rob asked.

Brenden crossed his arms. “Of course it is. The only traveller we have that could get back to that time is sitting in front of you.”

“Revolutionary Russia isn’t a popular period,” Demyan said with a shrug. “And it’s already very well documented, so the academics aren’t in a hurry, either.”

“Then...how did they get back there?” Ryan asked. “Where did they get the marker?”

Silence was his answer.

“Humans,” Rob said. “They must have worked their way back, from generation to generation of human memory.” He looked at Ryan as he said it.

“Or perhaps it was one of our markers, after all,” Brenden growled, staring at Pritti. “Demyan has the marker. And there’s at least one person here who isn’t bound by the codex, who is happy enough to mentally beckon the boss when she feels like it.”

Pritti’s eyes widened and she took a step back, away from Brenden. “You’re mean,” she whispered.

Demyan gripped the arm of his chair. None of the others were saying anything. Even Ryan simply stood there, watching Brenden glare at her.

Brenden was a man of strong opinions, but the silence must have confirmed his guess for him and given him complete conviction. He stepped toward Pritti, his expression evolving into one of menace.

Demyan fully expected her to simply teleport away. But she merely backed up another step, her eyes very big. She looked terrified.

Before he realized what he was going to do, Demyan stepped between the two of them, facing Brenden. He looked up at the giant of a man and felt the first touch of intimidation he’d felt in years. “Leave her alone. She’s not the enemy you think she is.”

Brenden blinked, looking utterly astonished. “What god has got into you?” he demanded.

“Brenden, leave it,” Ryan said sharply. “Demyan’s right. Pritti is not your security breach and wishing it so won’t make it such, as much as that would simplify things for you.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I said leave it.” This time there was a whiplash of authority in his voice, enough to make Brenden step back. Demyan mentally bowed to the man. Ryan didn’t feel cowed by the Spartan, despite knowing the man could separate his head from his shoulders with one hand and bring about his demise. Both of them had seen Brenden manhandle another, had witnessed the light of lust in his eyes and the damage he could inflict even without weapons.

Demyan waited until Brenden took another step back, returning approximately to where he had been standing all along.

Rob gasped, rising to his feet from the edge of the desk he had been propping himself upon. “
Je suis un idiot
!” He shook his head. “The money. That’s where they got the money for the tour of Rome. From the Romanov gold.”

Brenden turned his head to look at Rob , slowly, as if he resented the interruption. But then he began to smile. “You might be right, faux Frenchman.” He swatted Rob on the shoulder, making him stagger a little and turned on his heel. “
Adieu
. I will track the buggers and crush them beneath my heel!” The door of his office would have slammed shut behind him, if the mechanism had been but a little slower.

Demyan turned to check Pritti. She had gone.

He looked around, knowing she had probably jumped to some remote corner of the station that only she knew of and saw her on the far side of the room, heading for the exit. She seemed to be limping.

“I’ll...I have to go,” he murmured and followed her.

Despite her limp, Pritti was moving fast. She had turned off the main corridor, into the secondary passage that led to the rear of the station. Somewhere back there, she had her own quarters.

Demyan called her name, to get her to wait, but even in this secondary passage, there were a lot of people moving along its length.

Unsure of where the urgency came from, he resorted to one of Pritti’s own tricks. He mentally reached for her.
Pritti, wait
.

He felt the touch of her mind, an air of surprise and puzzlement and lengthened his stride. And there, just ahead, she was waiting for him.

As he got close, she wiped at her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Her smile was dazzling, full of warm emotion. He was bathed in it and he realized it was not just her smile. She was radiating her feelings. Showering him in them. “How could there be anything wrong?” she asked. She gave a little leap, throwing herself at him and he automatically caught her. Her arms wound around his neck, her legs around his waist and she kissed his cheek.

But he could feel her wet cheek against his jaw.

Yet the warmth, the joy, the happiness didn’t end. And it was intoxicating. He began to smile and tightened his arms around her. “You’re worse than the weather. You’ll strip gears, changing moods that quickly.”

She kissed him on the lips and this kiss was a slow, sensual one that aroused his sluggish senses. He responded, her bubbling happiness making him care very little that they stood in the middle of the passage as others carefully navigated around them with murmured apologies.

Abruptly, the passage was not there. The air around them changed and he lifted his lips from hers to look around. It was his room. She had jumped and taken him with her.

“Kiss me again,” she ordered and her voice was husky, a woman’s voice. It sent a ripple through him, stirring his blood.

“Pritti...”

She smiled, a wicked expression that made his heart leap.

And suddenly, he was on his back on the floor and she straddled his hips, leaning over him. She smiled again. “Hello.”

He listened to the telltale flutter of his heart, the rising lust in his veins. “I’m human,” he said. “You took me back into the past.”

“Not so far back,” she assured him. “Just far enough to reward you properly.” She touched the buttons on his shirt and they fell away at her mental command. She spread the shirt and rested her small, warm hands on his chest.

Trust Pritti, who jumped where and when she pleased, to have thought of this highly personal application of time-jumping.

Her eyes were shining as she smiled down at him. “You said something to the others.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” he said quickly.

She lifted her arms and her top slithered off over her head and landed on the floor behind her. The sight of her small, full breasts caught his breath.

His arms were pushed above his head and anchored with invisible, mental ties to the floor. He couldn’t move them. Pritti gave another wicked smile and licked his chin. “You said it anyway.”

“Brenden was being an idiot. Paranoid. Chasing shadows.”

Her lips were soft. Hot. He groaned, unable to move, even as his pants were stripped from him.

“Open your mind,” Pritti told him. “Feel all of it. Feel me, too.”

He could feel her powerful mental presence hovering over him. As her lips continued their assault, he opened up, letting her in and was instantly washed in a doubling of pleasure as she fed to him her own reactions, feelings, sensations.

He closed his eyes with a groan that was ripped from his soul and let himself drown in her.

* * * * *

“This time wave was nothing like the tsunami that went through, was it?” Cáel asked, pushing the reading board away from him thankfully.

Nayara looked up from her desk. “It was exactly the same,” she told him. “Only the tsunami lasted for two hours, not twenty seconds.”

Cáel felt queasy at the idea. He had been on the verge of dropping to his knees and vomiting with just twenty seconds of it. What would two hours of it had done to him? To the sick and frail? To little children?

“Is that how you knew this one came from a lot closer?”

“Or it wasn’t changing as much,” Nayara added. “Salathiel was a key influencer and he changed time a long way back in the past. The wave built up a lot of changes before it hit here.” She came around the desk. She was wearing another green outfit, one of the velvet ones that always intrigued him. It seemed to wrap around her and simply cling to her hip with no visible means of fastening, making him twitch to tug at the ends of the wrap and see if it unravelled. There were long boots underneath, ones with heels, that he planned to coax her into leaving on, later, if he possibly could.

He had been indulging himself with following her around with his gaze whenever he could get away with it and as a result, his body had been simmering all morning.

Ursella had been impatient and curt with his absentmindness, but Cáel had almost laughed in her face and that had merely irritated her further.

“Why the smile?” Nia asked, settling onto the table in front of him.

“These are such strange days,” he remarked, pulling her onto his lap. “You should probably lock the door.”

“I have already.” Her smile made her eyes sparkle and Cáel’s cock twitch.

He settled his hands around her hips. “So this wave, because it was smaller, meant it was closer and there wasn’t a key influencer involved. Gabriel will love that.”

“Maybe Gabriel
is
a key influencer, but if he wasn’t personally at the raid of the Romanov fortune, he won’t have influenced the event,” Nayara replied. “But the event was definitely closer. Three hundred and fifty years instead of six hundred odd.”

“It’s not linear at all,” Cáel said. “Not with all the branching possibilities that change can make. It’s pyramidal.”

Nayara nodded. “The further away in time the change takes place, the more powerful the time wave, by a factor we have no desire to discover.”

“Enough mathematics,” Cáel growled and reached for the edge of the wrap of her dress. “Do I just tug on this?”

“I don’t know. Do you?” she replied back, her face expressionless.

Cáel tugged gently, experimentally, afraid that if he pulled too hard, the gorgeous fabric would rip and he would look like a brute. But at his gentle tug the dress seemed to open up like a budding flower and fall down around her arms, leaving her naked from the waist up and surrounded by a pool of rich dark green velvet.

Cáel groaned his appreciation. “You did that deliberately.”

Nia’s smile was warm and wicked. “It’s an antistatic fastener. I turned it to negative as you tugged. I wanted to see the look on your face. It was delicious, by the way.” She curled her arms around his neck. “Especially as you gave me the impression there was nothing left a woman could teach you, Cáel.”