Romani Armada (53 page)

I’ll kill Gabriel for this
, he promised himself. Gabriel had done this to Ryan. Gabriel would pay. He had no idea how he would pull it off, but he had overcome the world’s worst odds more than once.

Making sure Adán, Rhydder and Kieren retrieved baby Jack was a step in the right direction. He would do whatever he could to make sure they pulled it off, even if he drove them to Prague himself and held their coats while they did the deed.

But...he was Cáel Stelios. There was much more he could do beyond holding coats.

His mind settled, his anger and fear contained, Cáel dropped his face into his best neutral politician’s mask and stepped into the room to plan the first step in his vengeance.

Chapter Forty-Two

Hammerside, Detroit-Rocktown Supercity, 2264 A.D.:
Rhydder and Demyan returned, two interest-filled days later.

With Demyan’s cash, Marley and Gawain had paid the most urgent of their debts and slowly smuggled a stock of food into the apartment in a way that didn’t alert the neighborhood about their sudden mysterious fortune. Gawain arranged for critical repairs and upgrades to his computer and the reading boards that were always kept synchronized with it and allowed him to work anywhere.

On the second day, when Marley had been bringing home yet another small bag of groceries inside her backpack, she had walked past the opening to the alley that serviced their apartment block, the cinema, the bar and ended at the shiny silver fence of the sports arena. There was a pack of wild dogs tearing at something with their teeth and paws. The dogs roamed the city and had learned to stay away from anyone still standing, because humans fought back. Anything not standing, that used to have or still did have a pulse, was fair game.

She looked away quickly, not interested in seeing what they were growling over. But before she turned away she saw the ragged end of wild red hair and a shiny bald dome.

Marley leaned against the corner of the building, staring at Oswald’s body as the dogs nuzzled it. There were no signs of violence. It might even have been the endless cold nights or one of the diseases that racked his body that finally killed him.

One of the dogs glanced up and bared his teeth.

Marley started walking again, her heart hurting and her stomach rolling. Oswald had been fine the other night. The night Rhydder had moved him.

Gawain wasn’t as ruffled by the news of Oswald’s murder as Marley. “Around here, your sister will pop you for an antique nickel. Oswald might have scored some good hooch that someone wanted to have instead of him. Why are you so jumpy about it?”

Marley couldn’t voice her fear aloud — that she thought Rhydder had something to do with Oswald’s death. She just couldn’t figure out why.

Don’t fear me.
Rhydder’s quiet words kept repeating themselves for the next few hours, whenever she thought of Oswald.

Gawain spent two days on his computer, either repairing and rebuilding it with the new parts he had bought, or trying to run Rhydder and Demyan down to earth via the names and little information they had let slip about themselves during the few hours she and Gawain had been in their company.

He had come up with precisely nothing, which made him bad company to be around. Mysteries were a joy for him to unravel — as long as they unraveled. Unsolvable mysteries were, according to Gawain, not possible.

When Rhydder and Demyan arrived on the second day, Marley wasn’t sure if she was relieved or dismayed. Gawain had settled for the quick and highly solvable problem of splicing into the building’s wiring and stealing more neural bandwidth. It would make the monitor that came with the apartment run better and would help Gawain maximize his computer speed.

So he was buried waist deep in a hole in the wall when the pair arrived, oblivious to his audience or the fact that his butt was hanging out.

Marley tugged on his chucks and Gawain pulled out slowly, cursing softly. “Goddamn softwall fiberboard. Still, could be worse. Could be asbestos. Now there’s nasty for you—”

He stopped when he saw Rhydder and Demyan. “Second thoughts, I’ll take asbestos with a side order of mercury to go.” He curled his lip. “You’re back. How lovely.”

“See you didn’t hire a maid with my money,” Demyan said, looking around.

“Coz that’s just what we wanted, to draw attention to ourselves, d’uh,” Gawain blew back. He tossed the cable wrench onto the table and tried to unsuccessfully brush plaster dust from his hair. It just made the sprinkling of white powder over his hair spread across his shoulders and chest. He was wearing a faded black tank top and his most ragged pair of pants, which had started out life black. The stunning white plaster dust stood out like snow on blacktop and made him look even more grimy and sweaty.

Rhydder grinned. “I like what you’ve done to your hair.”

“I’ve got the equipment you asked for,” Demyan told Marley. “Including the genetics lab.”

“In two days? That was fast.”

Rhydder wandered over to the hole in the wall. “Do you mind if I look?” he said to Gawain.

Gawain considered, then shrugged. “Why not? You tell anyone, I can turn you in for what you’re doing to Marley. Blackmail and extortion. Cops’ll be way more interested in you than me.”

Rhydder grinned. “You figure that’s the worst I’ve done?” He moved toward the hole as Gawain’s smile faded.

“The laboratory is ready as soon as you are,” Demyan added.

“
Now?”

“Pritti is already there and waiting.”

Rhydder pulled his head out of the hole. Unlike Gawain, he had managed to avoid most of the plaster dust. He brushed what little he’d acquired off his shoulders. “You splice into the wiring this side of the building junction box, you’ll alert the net company and miss out on half of the available bandwidth. On this side it’s choked and only supplying a few floors. You need to find the wiring on the front end of the junction box and cut in there, before it hits the box. Then you get all the speed and width you want and the company won’t notice a thing because you’re diverting it before it hits the box, which does the monitoring.”

Gawain’s eyes widened just a little bit. He shrugged, making it look casual. “The junction box could be anywhere. First floor. Three hundred feet of cable away. I’m tapping in where I can. Way I do it, no one will notice anything.”

Rhydder grinned. “It’s your funeral.”

“That’s right,” Gawain returned, picking up the cable splicer.

“We need to go now,” Demyan pressed.

Marley ran her gaze over Gawain. “There’s no way you can step inside a genetics lab like that,” she said slowly, realizing the position this put her in.

Gawain looked down at himself and held up a hand. “Five minutes,” he promised. “Real fast.” He reached for the hem of his tank top.

“No.
Now
,” Demyan insisted.

“He has to wash his hair, too. He can’t do it in five,” Rhydder rumbled. He turned his head to look at Marley. “You are perfectly safe with just the two of us. I guarantee it.”

Marley shivered and tried desperately to hide it. She knew that Gawain didn’t see it and perhaps Demyan but Rhydder, she wasn’t so sure about. He was watching her so closely.

“I don’t know anything about you. Who you are,” she said.

“You don’t have to,” he replied. “For now, it is enough that Pritti’s life depends on you remaining alive and in good health. It is important to us that Pritti remain alive and by extension, your life is therefore important.” He shrugged. “Anything else is unimportant.”

It was a re-phrasing of Gawain’s reasoning from last night. Hearing it echoed by Rhydder, from his unique viewpoint, allowed Marley to relax enough to nod. “Very well, then.” She caught Gawain’s eye. He nodded a little, too. He agreed.

“I want details when you get back,” he added.

Marley picked up her sack and coat and looked at Rhydder and Demyan. “Let’s go, then.”

As soon as the apartment door closed behind her and she was alone with them Marley wanted to change her mind, but she kept going. She was committed now and about to break the law on a scale that would absolutely put her on a transport ship...if anyone found out.

She kept thinking of Pritti and kept putting one foot in front of the other.

* * * * *

Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2264 A.D.:
“Rome, again?” she asked as they started their descent.

“It’s where Pritti is. We have access to unique resources there,” Rhydder said shortly.

Demyan remained silent.

Rhydder used a different landing strip this time. It looked like a private field. It had one of the stunted auto-traffic controllers sitting at the end, blinking. Manicured lawn butted up against the edge of the strip, which was smooth and crack-free.

There were low buildings a quarter of a mile away, surrounded by lush gardens. As the Corvette came back down to standard ground speed, Marley tried to figure out where they were. Something was tickling the back of her memory, knocking to be recalled.

Rhydder directed the car along the narrow drive that led to the landing strip. The drive meandered back to the buildings, winding around groves of trees and still ponds.

There was a narrow space between the buildings, and Rhydder slotted the car through without slowing. Ochre colored walls zipped by, then they emerged into a paved yard. Several other cars were lined up, nose in, facing the long wall of the yard.

There was a set of double doors at the narrow end. The doors looked old, with very old fashioned brass or bronzed handles that were green tinged around the edges. Well, this was Rome. It would be natural for buildings here to be incredibly old.

Rhydder pushed the door open with a twist of his wrist and cool air fanned their faces as they stepped inside.

Marley looked up at the high roof and frescoed walls. Age seemed to seep from every inch. “It this Villa…the villa that the vampire agency bought?”

“Villa Fontani,” Demyan murmured. “Welcome to the Chronometric Conservation Agency.”

Rhydder was walking ahead, through the room.

“The laboratory is here?” Marley queried, her voice dropping.

“Through here,” Rhydder called over his shoulder.

“We arranged everything to your specifications,” Demyan said.

“You must have worked…” She stopped, realizing how stupid her comment would be.

“Worked two days straight?” Demyan finished. “Yes, we did. We have that luxury.” He smiled grimly. “You’ve never mixed with vampires before, have you?”

“I’ve never even met one before.”

“Not that you know of,” Demyan replied.

“I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of that aspect.” She followed him around the corner into a beautiful courtyard with trees in the middle. It made her breath catch with the unexpectedness of it. She forces herself back on topic. “I thought, when I met Pritti, that you were simply helping a…friend. But if the Agency has gone to this trouble…”

“Pritti is a friend to the agency, too.”

“A psi-filer,” Marley qualified flatly.

“Indeed.” Demyan said. “This way. Pritti is waiting.”

* * * * *

Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2264 A.D.:
The laboratory really was a laboratory.

Marley carefully navigated the negative air-pressure door and walked around the small but well-equipped lab in her sealed shoes, conscious of Rhydder and Demyan staring at her through the observation wall.

With her first quick examination, everything she had asked for appeared to be in place.

Amazing.

She stepped back out into the clinic area. “Everything is here. This is more than adequate to begin procedures. Is that the office space?” she asked, pointing to the other door leading off the clinic area. “Somewhere for paperwork and for me to consult with Pritti? Computers and files are very dirty.”

“This way,” Demyan said, heading toward the door.

The door opened automatically as he approached it, which would save her hands from becoming soiled if they were sterile.

The compact but efficient consulting ward inside was a doctor’s dream. A fully automated desk, a medical bed and chair, lockers with equipment for collecting samples, and various monitoring and assessing tools.

“How did you find all the equipment so quickly?” Marley asked. “Or do I really want to know the answer?”

“There’s nothing nefarious about it,” Demyan said. “A bio-research development company that was starting up suddenly found the development money they thought they had didn’t come through. They had to fold their fledgling company and sell off their assets in a fire sale to pay off the debts they’d already acquired. We picked up their assets.”

Marley placed her hand on a pile of reading boards on the desk. “My research?” she asked, her heart suddenly pounding.

“Yes,” Demyan replied. “But how we acquired that is possibly an answer you really don’t want to know.”

She shook her head. “You’re right. I’ll pass on that one.”

“Demyan?” came the call from outside, in the clinic area.

“That’s Pritti,” Demyan said. He went out and brought Pritti into the consulting room.

Pritti edged into the room, her hand on Demyan’s sleeve, her big brown eyes looking as wary as any doe’s at the presence of strangers. But she was upright and far more energetic than the last time Marley had seen her. She kept close to Demyan and her gaze kept straying to Marley, even though it skittered away again quickly.

“Rhydder?” came another feminine hail.

Marley looked through the glass walls to the external door that gave access to the suite, as it slid aside. A red-headed woman of about thirty stepped in. She was wearing a green velvet business gown. Her hair glowed, as did her green eyes.

She looked around and spotted Rhydder, who was waiting in the outer area. Rhydder straightened up from his slouch against the edge of the table out there. He waved the woman toward the office.

The woman smiled her thanks. Rhydder held open the outside door of the office aside for her to walk through.