Time Thief: A Time Thief Novel (17 page)

“I didn’t mean get out of here literally, you know,” she said, getting up to straighten her shirt. “I meant it like ‘you’re kidding.’ But you aren’t kidding, are you?”

“No.” He bent to gather up the remains of their picnic,
handing Kiya her blanket before proceeding to a trash can in the motel parking lot.

“You know, I think I’m just going to let the idea of vampires and glamours go for right now, because there’s only so much my brain can process in a day, and right now it’s full of the idea of time theft and Indian balls of light who enjoy watching raccoons go at it. Hey, where are you going?”

“I have work to do,” he said, pausing to look back at her. “You may try all you like to distract me with your sweet mouth, and those delicious-looking breasts, and your legs and such, but I won’t have any of it. I am a member of the Watch. I am above such things.”

So saying that, he marched back, pulled her tight against his chest, and kissed the daylights out of her.

“No, I can see that you are strictly business,” she said, laughing against his mouth.

He frowned at her.

She licked the tip of his nose.

“You can’t leave me like this,” she said, quickly taking his hand and not releasing it when he tried to politely shake her off. “I have oodles of questions, and besides, I want to not distract you again sometime in the very near future.”

“You cannot come with me,” he said sternly, altering his path and leading her to her car.

“Why? Are you going to a men’s room or something?”

“No. I’m going to Lenore Faa’s camp, so that I might discuss with Andrew and Gregory the theft of your time.”

“Oh, you really can’t go there,” she said, clasping his hand with both of hers, and digging in her heels.

“Why not?”

“Because of what happened last night. And what I
heard this morning.” She paused, thinking. “What exactly did happen last night? You didn’t get around to telling me that.”

“I didn’t tell you because I had no intention of telling you.” He tried to pry off her hands. It just made her hold on tighter.

“Nothing like the present to take care of pesky chores,” she said cheerily. “Tell me now.”

“No.”

“I’m not going to let go until you do.”

He gave her a haughty look, one filled with manly intent. “Do you seriously believe that you can dictate to me, a member of the Watch?”

She suddenly released his hand, leaning forward into him, teasing his lips with her tongue, while at the same time boldly stroking her hand down his chest. “What if I ask nicely and said please?”

“Do not delude yourself into thinking I can be swayed by physical temptations,” he said firmly as he led her over to a small wooden picnic bench that had been chained to a tall fir tree at the edge of the parking lot. “I am made of sterner stuff than that.”

“Yes, you are,” she agreed, giggling under her breath. “What were you doing at Mrs. Faa’s RV last night?”

“I went to confront the family, hoping to save them embarrassment by having the guilty person surrender himself to my custody.”

“What guilty person?”

“If I could tell you that, I wouldn’t have need of the vial.”

“No, I meant what’s someone in Mrs. Faa’s family guilty of? And just what’s in that vial you keep yammering on about?”

He jerked back, giving her a stern look that she utterly disregarded. “I do not yammer! I have never yammered in my life!”

“Uh-huh. What’s in the vial?”

“DNA proof that one of the members of Lenore Faa’s family is a murderer.”

Her eyes widened in alarm. She was silent for a moment before saying, “You’re serious, aren’t you? I can see you are. But really, Peter—a murderer?”

He nodded, and briefly explained about the murders he had been investigating the last few months. “The latest one finally gave me the evidence I need to pin down the perpetrator of the crimes.”

“I can’t believe—” She shook her head, her hand on one of his. “I just can’t believe that one of them is a murderer. Rude, I agree. Nasty, if you’re talking about Andrew. Very cliquish, oh, hell yes. But a murderer? Someone who would take an old lady’s life? That’s just…appalling.”

“I am in full agreement. Which is why it’s important I retrieve that vial before the DNA is destroyed or damaged.”

“So that’s why you were at Mrs. Faa’s camp last night? You figured one of your cousins took it when they stabbed you?”

“That was one reason why I was there. I had arranged to meet my boss at a rendezvous point near the camp, but before I found him, I was ambushed.”

Her face was drawn with worry and concern. That fact warmed him like nothing had in many decades. “And that’s when you got stabbed a second time?”

He nodded.

“That’s really horrible. I don’t know why I think it’s
any less evil that your own cousins would stab you, but when you compare that to outright murder…it’s just awful, Peter. You have to stop it.”

“I intend to do so.” He looked away from her, struggling with himself as to whether he should put into words the feeling that he had battled for so many decades, since the time his beloved mother had died. “It is the twenty-first century. It is time for Travellers to break the bonds of tradition that keep them outside of society. We could do so much together, Kiya—we have powers that could benefit the mortal and immortal worlds alike. But Travellers have never wished to share their skills that way. They’ve never given back, and the time of taking has to come to an end.”

Kiya’s gaze was steady on his. “You know what you are?” she asked after a moment’s silence, her fingers tightening where she had clasped his hand.

“A man?”

“You’re a hero, that’s what you are. An honest-to-god hero. If you were in a comic book, you’d be…I don’t know, Timey-Wimey Man or something.”

A warm glow began deep inside him at the look of admiration in her eyes. No one had ever admired him before. Fear, yes, that he’d seen in the eyes of the people he tracked. Loathing and hatred and anger were all familiar reactions to his presence. But no one had ever looked at him as if he were a knight in shining armor. Kiya’s admiration made him feel simultaneously extremely uncomfortable and just like he really could do anything he set his mind to.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, basking for another second or two in the shy smile she gave him. “It’s common sense, really. By excluding ourselves from the
world, Travellers do nothing but create an atmosphere of suspicion and fear. And now, with some members feeling they answer to no law, they are a danger to their own kind.”

“Because people will think that all of them are like that? Murderers, I mean?”

He nodded, giving her hand a squeeze before releasing it. “It’s why I hope to reason with Lenore Faa after I prove to her that one of her own kin is responsible for such heinous crimes against mortals.”

“Good luck with that.” She stood in thought for a moment, allowing him to drink in her delicious scent. “Something’s bothering me—you keep saying her name like you’re not part of that family.”

He shrugged. “I’m not. I’m mahrime, as I told you.”

“So because your mom wasn’t part of the family, that makes you an outcast? That’s really heavily incestuous, you know.”

“You need only have two parents who are Travellers to be considered part of a family, not parents who are members of the same family. To have a mortal parent is what pollutes your blood and makes you impure to Traveller eyes.” He glanced at his watch. “I must leave.”

“Hold on there, Bobalooey. I have about a gazillion more questions, not the least of which is why you gave me fifty cents when you stole my time. Not that I mind you doing it, because you were showing me, although I’m really skeeved out about the idea that someone can do that to me without me knowing.”

He stood up, pulling out his cell phone to consult notes he had made earlier. “That was payment for the time.”

“Huh?”

She looked so adorably confused, he couldn’t help but give her one more kiss, a swift one this time because he had work to do. “All Travellers pay for the time they steal, and always in silver. It helps avert the consequences.”

“It does?”

She looked even more confused, but hardening his heart—and ignoring the demands of his groin—he walked away from her to see what sort of shape his rental car was in. He’d track down his two cousins and have a chat with them about stealing Kiya’s time before demanding that they turn over the murderous member of the family.

But before he did that, he’d take advantage of Kiya being away from the camp to search her tent. Although he hated the idea that she might not be as innocent as he hoped she was, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that she might be working for his enemies.

It was enough to send a chill down his spine. He knew exactly how his family would discard Kiya when they were done using her. She’d be lucky to escape with her time—and life—intact.

“O
f all the irritating, arrogant—holy cats, can he kiss!—men I’ve ever met, you, sir, are the worst,” I grumbled aloud as I got into my car. “And if you think you can just walk away from me without answering more than a couple of questions, you can just think again, buster. Eloise, follow!”

I performed the intricate ritual that normally results in Eloise starting up, but after having been so obliging earlier in the day—multiple times, yet—she had evidently felt she’d done her part in granting me happiness. She played coy by pretending to start, then sputtering into silence.

“Dammit, Eloise!” I said, stomping hard on the gas. “Don’t you do this to me! We have a man to kiss! Er…follow. Although the kissing was really, really nice. Did you see that he got all bulgy when we were going at it out on the lawn? I did. Mmrowr.”

A little ball of golden light zipped along the ground, then disappeared into Peter’s car just before it drove out of sight.

“At least Sunil didn’t get lost in the woods,” I groused, peering impotently over Eloise’s dashboard. “And seriously, I need some sort of formal recognition that I didn’t
freak out at the idea of balls of talking light, and Travellers, and glamours and such. At the very least, a big ole herkin’ piece of chocolate is in order.”

I sighed and straightened up in the seat, cursing myself for forgetting to ask Peter for his cell phone number. A horrible thought struck me then—what if that kiss was an anomaly? What if he didn’t want to give me his phone number, didn’t want to see me again? Dear god, what if I repulsed him?

Really,
my ego said to my superego,
someone has got to stop watching so many reality TV shows. She’s gone all drama queen on us.

Totally,
my superego responded.
Any minute now she’s going to start saying that no one finds her attractive, and she’ll die alone and unloved in a small one-room apartment filled with thirty-nine cats. Which will eat her when she drops dead. And then escape to find better, more loving, non-cat-hoarding homes.

“For the love of the good green turtles, will you stop!” I told both of them, and bent over with determination to start Eloise.

Turtles are not green,
my id said quietly. I threatened to punch her in the gooch, and ignored the other two parts of my psyche when they made rude comments about my state of mind as I got Eloise going, and drove back to the camp.

Seriously, there were days when I wish Carla had been anything but a psychologist.

“You! Girl! Kiya!”

The voice assailed me as I parked Eloise near my tent, and crawled out of the window.

Mrs. Faa was standing at the steps of her RV, her dogs plopped in the shade around her like furry mounds of
dough. “Come here. I have something important to discuss with you.”

I bit my lip and hurried across the camp, ignoring the strained faces of the women as they bustled their kids out of my path. What had I done to make Mrs. Faa so angry? I didn’t have a watch, because they never worked for me longer than an hour or two, but I had checked the time when I was buying the picnic lunch, and I didn’t think I was late coming back.

Unless Peter had stolen more time than I thought he did. I gave a shake of my head, amazed that I could process something like Travellers without checking myself in for a mental evaluation. But Peter had seemed so sincere, and when he did that trick of making me déjà vu, it proved that his claim was possible.

“Come here,” Mrs. Faa repeated, gesturing toward a couple of Adirondack chairs before turning to the women. “I would speak with her alone.”

The two women and the children disappeared into their respective RVs. I caught sight of Mrs. Faa’s two dark-haired grandsons, Piers and Arderne. They watched me warily, as if they expected me to suddenly go mad and run amok. One held an ax, while the other was lugging an armful of chopped wood to a stack that sat at the rear of one of the RVs.

Peter’s comments about the family being exclusionary came immediately to mind. What I thought was simply a tight-knit family took on a new light.

“Peter’s absolutely right. You can’t be this isolated and not end up with everyone hating you,” I said to myself as I obeyed the royal command and duly walked over to the indicated chair.

Before I could get to the chair, the door to the nearest
RV opened and William stepped out. He glared at me, turned on his heel, and returned to the RV without a word.

I thought a few rude things about him, but kept from voicing any of them as I smiled at Mrs. Faa, and took my seat. “Yes, ma’am?”

“You! Girl! Kiya!”

The voice made me jump when I crawled out of Eloise’s window. I cracked my head on the roof and swore as I spun around, rubbing my head and gawking at the elderly woman standing at her RV, surrounded by pugs.

“Come here. I have something important to discuss with you.”

“Oh, no, you did not!” I said, outraged as I marched toward William’s RV. That bastard just stole my time!

“Kiya! I wish to speak to you!” Mrs. Faa said imperiously.

“Just a minute, please. I have to have a word with your son,” I called to her, then stopped before William’s RV and banged on the door. “Come out of there, William. I know you’re in there!”