Vengeance

• Prologue
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  
• Epilogue
  
• About the author
  

Dedication

For my nieces, Tina and Lisa. If Cerberus showed up on their doorstep, they'd adopt him for sure.

In 2070, the Blue Plague decimated much of humankind. If it hadn't been for the Great Intervention of 2072, mankind might have perished. But because of God's Intervention, humans developed telepathic powers, allowing them to begin an era of true peace. After all, it's hard to wage war when you know
exactly
what the other guy is thinking and planning.

In 2145, God's Portal was implemented, allowing travel back through time. At first, only scientists used the device, although illegal copies proliferated and other less scrupulous individuals used them. Gradually others were allowed to use the monitored, legal devices for travel. Any travelers were researched thoroughly to make sure they didn't alter the timeline. Of course, by this time the legal faction had to jump on the bandwagon, pointing out that since history had already occurred, obviously timelines hadn't been altered--debates are still festering to this day about this point. Time-tourists were implanted with recall devices, which would bring them back to the present.

Not surprisingly, one of the first illegal tools to come on the market was a way to circumvent the recall. As so often happens when an illegal device appears, murderers, felons and other criminals were the first to take advantage of the technology. In 2163, travel through the portal was banned because too many criminals escaped and so many tourists decided to "stay behind." In 2165, the History Patrol was formed. The Guides with the Patrol go back in time, checking to ensure that criminals are not wreaking havoc and that those wayward tourists who did not recall remained behind of their own free will.

A telepathic, shapeshifting Companion accompanies each Guide as a guard. Only Companions know the whole truth about the Patrol. The Companion and Guide are reincarnations of two lovers, one of whom betrayed the other. Companions cannot be seen in human form until they can forgive the one who betrayed them in a former life or until they are freely forgiven by the one they betrayed.

The Guides are unaware that they have a previous-life connection to their Companions. As far as they know, their assignments are straightforward--find the criminals and/or tourists, bring 'em home. Their Companion is with them to help, give advice and monitor--until that moment of revelation when penance has been served and forgiveness must be given or withheld.

In a way, it's God's way of giving people a do-over. Sometimes the do-over is positive and sometimes...well, don't let it be said that God doesn't have a sense of humor.

The hairs on my neck prickled and I shivered. I caught my reflection in a store window as misty snow swirled past my face. A tall man with cropped gray-and-black hair stared back. That ghostly hand touched my shoulder again.
Someone walked on my grave.
I remembered my mother using that expression, two hundred years in the future. I smiled now at the memory, the mist like cold tears on my face.

Someone walked on my grave. That couldn't be. I was immortal. I had no grave. I shook aside the distracting thought and continued stalking my quarry.

As normal humans go, she was attractive. She was nearing middle age but didn't look her forty-six years. She was short, barely five feet tall, and perfectly proportioned with small breasts, a smallish waist and flaring hips. A real woman, like those I remembered from my time travels to the 17th and 18th centuries. She wasn't one of those anorexic athletes I saw jogging around the lakes. And certainly not like the unisex creatures from my original life in the 22nd century.

I followed her at a distance. The sidewalk was crowded with after-work shoppers, making it easy to blend in. The chill of Minnesota in late March made people hurry. Even the lure of Easter windows only caused brief ripples in the mass of woolen-coated bodies as they stampeded through slushy waves of melting snow.

Lucinda Delacroix stopped, causing a parting of the body-sea in front of the window of the huge bookstore. I craned my neck as I stumbled past, trying to see what so intrigued her.

Her wide gray eyes were fixed on an animatronics scene from
The Velveteen Rabbit
, part of the Easter display the conglomerate advertised. Dark curls twined around her face from under her cocky red cloche. Her flushed cheeks and Mickey Mouse mittens gave her the look of an excited child. She smiled, as though remembering the story of the animal who was made Real because of love.

I glanced at the display. An ancient stuffed bunny sagged on a child's chair. It looked as old as I felt. But after two hundred years of living, I was entitled to weariness. I was within touching distance when she turned. Our eyes met. For an instant the world stood still. I was engulfed by the wistful expression she still wore. I longed to experience innocent delight again. I thought for one crystal moment that if I could touch her, I'd inherit her sweetness and humanity.

The crowd pushed us apart and I lost sight of her. The world resumed its breathing.

I, of course, did not.

I wasn't looking forward to killing her. This happened occasionally in the two decades I've been a paid assassin for that secret organization with the ludicrous name funded by the U.S. government. Perhaps I was tiring of it. Or perhaps I was developing a conscience. I hoped not. That could be inconvenient to a man who killed for a living.

I followed Miss Delacroix through the dusk, the heavy mist turning to light snow. I was born, lo those many years in the future, in Northern England and my travels had taken me around the world to many times in history. But I always came back to the northern reaches of America or Scotland, where few people lived and there was so much space. The encroaching suburbs were consuming my current home in northern Minneapolis, so I seldom stayed there, going instead to my cabin in the North Woods where I plotted the next move in the chess game that was my existence.

My Life Quarry, as I thought of him, had remained out of reach for decades. But Robert Meyer was now emerging from hiding and Lucinda Delacroix could put me in a position where I could finally murder Meyer. Once that happened, I could try to kill myself and end the insanity that had gripped me since the day in 1790 when Meyer infected me with his virus. And then I could rest. I was very close to the goal that had sustained me for more than two centuries.

Lucinda paused again near a Caribou Coffee shop. I silently urged her inward. I wanted a chance to view her in good light, to get a sense of her. My assignment was clear. She had to die in six days, on Easter Sunday. Pity to spoil her holiday, but we have rules in this trade.

She ducked inside. I loitered a moment, pretending interest in a travel agent next door. A dog sniffing at a trash can nearby looked up and started toward me. He had coarse, matted, black-and-gray fur, a big, rangy build and paws the size of dinner plates. His tongue lolled out like some alien's, drool gathering at the sides of his jaw where yellowed teeth were displayed. Floppy ears completed the picture, one black and one white, giving him a harlequin look. He sneezed moistly at an unsavory looking brown lump on the ground.

I followed Lucinda into the coffee shop. I expected to see her at the counter, ordering one of the obnoxious drinks so loved by 21st century Americans. Instead I almost ran her down as she stood in front of a display of small stuffed animals. She turned as the cold air from the door wafted over her. Our eyes met again. She smiled.

Women always smiled at me. Not to mince words, but I'm handsome. I resemble one of the current movie stars--Clooney? Jackman? Brosnan? I can't keep them straight. Someone tall with a strong jaw, pale blue eyes, thick, dark hair cut short and streaked with white, and dimples when he smiles. It was just the luck of the draw, all traits inherited from my mother, who was a beauty, and my father, a genetic engineer. I was older than time, but no one would know it from my appearance. I was injected with the virus when I was forty-five and I've aged only slightly in the two-hundred-plus years since then.

"Sorry," I said, stepping around her.

She pulled one of the small stuffed animals from the shelf. "They shouldn't put such an enticing display where it'll cause a traffic jam."

Enticing? I looked at the cloyingly cute animals. She must have seen my bemusement. "I love the look on his face." She held up a specimen to show me.

I considered the creature in her hand. The small brown moose wore a minty green and white Easter Bunny costume, large ears poking up between his antlers. Its arms and legs (paws? hooves?) poked out of the green costume, one upraised hoof waving a coffee mug. The animal's countenance bore a look of chagrin, or perhaps sly good humor at its costume.

"Indeed." I started to move around her, but she shifted. I gestured her ahead of me to the counter.

She plunked down the moose and pulled off her red cloche. Dark, springy curls bounded out, prisoners released from their cage. "Medium coffee with room for cream," she said without hesitation.

Her choice of beverage redeemed her choice of enticing toy. "Allow me." Before she could reply, I said, "Make that two." I pulled my wallet from my jeans' pocket. "It's the least I can do since I almost flattened you at the door."

She regarded me from under dark lashes that framed gray eyes the color of the clouds on the moors, building and tumbling in the distance, changeable from dark to light. "Thank you, but I'll pay for my moose." She flourished the creature at the cashier.

"Oh. I already rang it up," the woman said uncertainly.

The process of rectifying the mistake appeared beyond the cashier's meager mental capabilities. I shook my head. "I insist."

"So do I." Lucinda rummaged in the voluminous denim bag hanging at her shoulder, emerging finally with what appeared to be a plastic billfold decorated with M&Ms characters. She extracted a five-dollar bill and thrust it at me. "Please."

I took it, tucking it in my jacket pocket. "Only if you'll sit with me." I smiled, trying on my 'lonesome' look. I extended my hand. "Nico Haidess."

After the briefest hesitation, she put her hand in mine. A psychic shock pounded through me, almost dropping me to my knees. I maintained my composure by sheer force of will as she murmured, "Lucinda Delacroix."