The Shades of Time (5 page)

There!

Instinct
dictated she turn and move away from the assailant, yet she felt
strangely sympathetic and curious. This incursion was less
adversarial, yet the fact he was able to penetrate her defenses so
easily spoke volumes of the operative's abilities and put her in a
tenuous position.

Without
thinking, she moved away from the group, only to be blocked as
Tonio moved into her path.

"I have him,
M'lady," Tonio muttered. He reached for his brother's arm and
jerked him back, his voice cold and stern, brooking no argument,
"Stefano, now."

With a wink,
Stefan
o
said, "
Scuse
mio fratello
rozzo
...
" and bowing at the waist, he swept an imaginary hat low to
the cobblestoned surface. "We have a most urgent
appointment."

If Tonio objected to being
called boorish, he gave no indication. Instead he instructed his
brother to take her arm and follow him as he pushed through the
crowd.

Veluria was happy enough for
once to follow the Demon de' Medici's lead and to accept his
dubious protection.
Through a quirk of
fate, she'd been placed in the hands of a man who had the potential
to step beyond the confines of his father's vast game of shifting
political alliances. Granted, with Antonio, the apple fell not far
from that tree—he and Cosimo were two of a kind, both dangerous men
with unusual capabilities, or so the rumors intimated. Her
assessment of the man was that he would act in the service of
family as long as it suited.

However, the fate that awaited Stefano, with his preferred
bloodlines and courtly mannerisms, teetered on the whims of a
prelate with considerable influence in matters of state, and on
Cosimo de' Medici, the ruler behind the throne. How Antonio de'
Medici handled the outcome of Cosimo's negotiations with the
Habsburgs could be the key to unraveling the mysterious forces
threatening her world.
Perhaps Mother Superior had been right about her
reservations at using Stefano as her
entrée
into this vaulted inner circle of power, but there was no debating
the fortuitous outcome of finally securing the services of one
who
could
lead her
to the ultimate solution.

How fate
choreographed the next steps would go a long way in determining if
the man everyone feared would be her willing accomplice … or the
destroyer of all she held dear.

As the phalanx
of partiers made their steady procession across the square, Andreas
followed, once more deploring his rashness and the ungodly
compulsion to feel her—Veluria's—essence. Yes, he'd alerted her to
his presence. But it could not be helped now. That small taste had
sent his senses reeling, his blood sluicing red hot through his
veins.

Her guard dog
notwithstanding, he could access her core at his choosing, allowing
her to lead him to the ultimate solution to their mutual
dilemma.

Invisible to
the masses, his cowl pulled over his head, he slipped through the
throng, rosary beads clacking in a simple, devout rhythm. His
presence went unremarked, just another cleric out for evening
vespers.

Chapter
Four

Veluria's gaze
was drawn repeatedly to Antonio, his uncommon bulk parting the sea
of people with ease. She'd lost sight of the phalanx guarding their
passage across the square but there was no question they were close
and ready to intervene when necessary. She wondered what it might
be like … serving under such a master. Did they do it out of fear,
or out of respect?

He wore power
effortlessly, the threat of violence barely below the surface, not
so much concealed as simply … available. But there was more to him
than that. Others would see it as something discomfiting, a matter
of dominance and an utter lack of compassion, a being who was
nothing more than a cold impervious shell.

Defenses.
Like her own carefully
constructed barricades, his walls radiated like a beacon to her
heightened senses. What interested her was that he made no effort
to conceal the fact that he possessed rather extraordinary
abilities. What others saw was a mere shadow of his true existence.
For lesser men to be called
Demon
would have led to the torture chamber and a slow
agonizing death. For him, it'd become the currency that allowed him
to function without drawing undue attention.

Damn. I've been
too long in this world, walking in shadows. Shadows that keep me
from seeing clearly.

She'd already drawn 'undue attention', first from the Council
operative—unavoidable and not unexpected, though the nature of the
man's abilities was unclear. The contact—the assault—had held an
element of voyeurism, perhaps even obsession. If there were a
description for what she'd suffered when he'd probed her,
rape
was the only word
that came to mind. And it had hurt. It still did.

Antonio de' Medici then made a surprise entrance onto this
damnable stage, acting at the behest of, by implication, the
redoubtable
pater
familias
, Cosimo. That was a potential
complication she hadn't counted on. To make matters worse, she
suspected Tonio of fostering intensely protective instincts toward
his younger brother. Those instincts radiated disapproval of her
and her influence over the young man's emotions and position in the
court. Whether or not he divined her true purpose had yet to be
determined.

Mother Superior
was either smiling benignly at her stroke of good fortune or
suffering apoplexy at the potential for out-of-control mayhem.

Mother Superior
paced the sanctuary, her robes in angry agitation about her ample
figure.

"My dear, we
must restore the balance of power to the rightful rulers of our
world, a balance that slips away, each day closer to disintegration
of all the principles we revere."

The older woman
stopped abruptly and drew in a breath, then spoke so softly Veluria
had to lean close so as not to miss her next words. "You will find
that the politics of court and war dominate that shadow Venezia,
unlike our enlightened times. History tells us much of that
period," she shrugged and pursed her lips in a grim line, "but not
everything. What you, we, seek might be an object of power that has
the potential, in the wrong hands, to effect the changes we only
now detect."

Veluria
understood that 'object of power' might be a thing, a person, an
unspecified congruency of events, even deliberate interference. The
statisticians could only guess and add euphemism after euphemism to
mask their own lack of understanding of the processes.

Fingering the
tora, her face creased with concern, the woman said, "The
probabilities are not … favorable."

Veluria sighed,
"I understand, Reverend Mother."

"Do you, my
child?"

"The gateways
may be unstable, difficult to locate. I-I…" she hesitated,
regretting the hitch in her voice, the misgivings too readily
apparent, "…might be stranded there." She mentally chided herself
for the weakness and stated, this time her voice strong and filled
with conviction, "I do thy bidding, thy Word is mine, so shall it
be."

"So shall it
be…" Mother Superior intoned. "Now. Particulars. We will lend
assistance but it will depend on those damnable bolt holes being in
the right place at the right time. Think of yourself as the Lone
Gunman, use whatever resources come to hand. You will not be
faulted…" the woman grinned wickedly, "…for thinking outside the
box."

Veluria
followed her Orders' Head of Operations into a large room filled
with storage containers, racks of clothing and mannequins in
obscene parodies of human stances.

"My dear, allow
me to introduce you to that most heinous of all devices. The
distaff answer to the Council's perversion: the hair shirt." With a
flourish, she held up a lovely bit of stiff fabric, lace and satin
ribbons. "I give you … the corset."

The Medici
family: Cosimo, Antonio, Stefano—these were known historical
figures. Yet the reality of dealing with men who so deftly
exercised influence and control over not just a city and a
religious institution, but a continent as well—none of that had
been anticipated when she had been tasked with journeying through
the portal between their cities, their shadow worlds. She had never
suspected there would be someone on this side who could match, let
alone possibly defeat her gifts, if he chose to be her enemy.

She felt the
weight of a stare upon her and looked up, her gaze locking with
Antonio's deep-set eyes. No expression could be read in their
endless depths, but he smiled and in that moment she realized that
he had likely calculated the probabilities—and now he might be
closer to knowing what she was and why she had come.

He would
rightly guess that she was not what she claimed, but he could not
possibly understand the nature of her mission, or what she truly
was—a being out of time and out of place. She could feel his black
eyes boring into her with a knowing that frightened and titillated,
setting every nerve ending ablaze.

Fear.
That would be the little death
that training and belief could defeat.
But
this—this was something else.

Stefano hissed,
"Are you all right?" and placed his arm protectively about her
shoulders. She settled against him, his compact body warm and
comforting. This innocent she could handle. It was the taller, cold
demon stalking ahead of her that gave her pause.

Her fingertips
tingled as she smoothed her gown, the hair on her arms standing up
at the familiar, and most welcome, sensation. Off to her right she
spied a stairwell, rough-hewn and hemmed in by ancient stone
edifices, leading to an upper floor or the roof. In the dim light,
it appeared wrapped in a smoky blue haze. Her captors paid it
little mind. She was sure this led to a portal, as it had that feel
of other-worldliness, a homing beacon to her own time and place.
She risked a nonchalant glance at the stairwell again, marking its
location in relation to the square.

A fleeting
thought of flight caressed her mind. She knew where the stairs were
now, the link mathematically encoded, accessible only to her. She
could return later, if she needed an emergency bolt hole. Assuming
it would still be there. No one had informed her about how to
discriminate between naturally-occurring gateways and the
constructs held in place by the scientists of her own
generation.

The other, more
vexing, problem was, even if she did flee, she suspected that both
Antonio and the Council's operative had the ability to track her.
Both men seemed keyed onto her energy signature, an unfortunate and
annoying development when she lacked the means to slam a virtual
door shut against any pursuit.

She needed some damn shields—even now the Medici
demon
probed, sending
tendrils of energy to snake her neural pathways.
Does he think I don't notice?
His powers had an unschooled, neophyte's feel, rough around
the edges but for all that … insistent.
I
wonder if he realizes what he's doing.
Unfortunately, once he figured it out he would learn
quickly.

Confusion and
determination wrestled for dominance and, for a moment, it
controlled her mind. She couldn't help but turn her eyes to him. If
she weren't careful, he could steal her very thoughts, look into
her soul like a voyeur and rape her most private self.

That word again …
rape
. But this was not the same as the
full scale invasion she'd suffered in the tunnel. This was
curiosity, tinged with admiration. If she didn't know better, she'd
say it was naïve, coy, perhaps even flirtatious.

Flirtatious?
Merciful Mother, that did not compute.

Her hands
trembled. She would need to find a way to counteract his growing
abilities before they subsumed her very essence.

Or I could give
in, submit.

For a
frightening moment, that thought gained dominance, hurtling through
her veins in a hot rush of sensuous pleasure fueled by unbidden,
forbidden desire. The intensity startled and rocked her back on her
heels. She stumbled and fell heavily onto the uneven cobbled path.
Stefano's gentle touch and gasp of concern brought her back to her
senses.

Mon dieu, what
had just happened?

****

"
Hai fatto bene
, Padre Andreas," the Monsignor intoned. He repeated, "Well
done indeed."

Andreas kept his eyes lowered, fingers twitching with
irritation as he kept them buried in the folds of his robes.
Despite His Holiness' pleased tone, he had
not
done well at all. He had failed to
divine the location of the woman, despite his link. The mob in the
Square, the Demon's men effectively blocking his every attempt to
approach, all had conspired to defeat his purpose.

So much for
Follow, Observe.

During his
report he'd noted the Monsignor's almost giddy excitement at
learning what should have been self-evident facts. The Medicis
continued to exercise nearly absolute control over events, the
French woman was not who she seemed… He found it difficult to care
about the import of such mundane particulars, not when he had
other, more urgent, concerns.

Thoughts racing
nearly out of control, he longed to succumb to the compulsive urges
that her link provided. Sweat beaded on his brow as he pushed the
Monsignor's monotone discourse to the background. Opening to the
ambient energies, he sought the one who promised completion,
fulfillment, undeniable ecstasy.