Byzantine Heartbreak (24 page)

“I did?” he said. “I was a fool.” He slid his hand into her hair. “Does your hair come down the same way?”

She shook her head. “No. It took me an hour to get my hair up and presentable for Shun this morning.”

“You let that woman scare you too much, Nia.”

“Yes,” she agreed as Cáel kissed her and the word emerged as an exhale. The kiss grew hot and languid almost immediately. It was hard to ignore the throbbing of his body when Nia was naked and pressed against him. Her hands nimbly and swiftly unfastened his shirt and pushed it down his arms so that he was sitting in the chair naked from the waist up, too. He guessed he didn’t look as elegant as Nia, but frankly didn’t care. The touch of her breasts against his chest felt like the brush of twin brands. His heart reared and slammed around in response.

He knew there was something he needed to do, but the concern evaporated as Nia pushed her hand down his stomach, sliding it under his trousers. Her intention was obvious and Cáel’s cock reared up to greet her touch, hampered by his seated position and the folders of his trousers.

Then, abruptly, Nia was gone from his lap like a giant hand had plucked her away. Her lips were torn from his.

She stood next to her desk, holding the dress up against her chest, wearing a defiant expression. She had moved at vampire speed. That was why it had felt like she had been ripped from him.

Cáel looked to where she was staring, already knowing what he would see.

Ryan stood in the open doorway between his office and Nia’s.

The door. That was what Cáel had been trying to remember to do. They had locked the outside door, but not the internal door between Nia’s and Ryan’s offices.

Ryan’s face was stiff and utterly devoid of emotion. Cáel knew he was holding it that way, holding himself apart from any reaction, trying to stay above the pain of any emotions.

Nia lifted her chin. “You might have knocked or something.”

Ryan let out a ragged breath and briefly, raw hurt flashed in his eyes. “When have I ever had to announce myself with you, Nia?”

She remained silent.

“I see,” Ryan said slowly. “I will from now on, then.” He turned back into his office.

Horrified, Cáel stood up. “Ryan.”

Ryan lifted his hand, palm out toward Cáel. The ‘cease’ motion was definite and inarguable. Ryan wouldn’t even look him in the eye.

The door slid shut.

“Stop him!” Cáel told Nia, as she slowly put her dress back on.

“Stop him how?” she asked remotely. “
He
has done nothing.”

“
Gods!
” Cáel cried. “You two are the most stubborn...!” He didn’t finish the thought. He strode to the connecting door himself, but the door, which had been keyed to his profile and normally slid open as soon as he neared it, stayed solidly shut.

Ryan had locked them out.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Cairo, Egypt. 2263 A.D.

With thirty million people, Cairo was still the biggest city in Africa. For centuries, the ancient city had struggled to provide enough housing, to entice steady streams of people to relocate off-world with the promise of stake-money. Despite their efforts, the poorest Egyptians were forced to lived in the cemeteries called The City of the Dead, forming a micro-society of their own—one that obeyed few of the laws most civilized people recognized.

Demyan had heard of the City of the Dead, but had never had reason to visit, even when he had been living in the Sinai in his dessert-dweller days, as he’d slowly moved westward across the globe.

Despite the knowledge that no-one could really hurt him, Demyan kept an eye on those following behind him and anyone who took anything more than passing interest in him as he moved through the narrow, dark lanes. He had no intention of being stopped, or even delayed, this night.

He sampled the mental winds and felt Pritti just ahead. She had stopped moving now and he hurried his pace. Just ahead, there was a low shack made of pieces of statuary that propped up cast off metal sheets and plastic draped over the edges. It was meant only to keep the scheduled early evening rain off. There was a small fire flickering beneath it and many dark shadows, some of them moving. One of those shadows would be Pritti.

He moved boldly toward it, not hesitating or creeping along, for that would alert her. When he reached the fragile structure, he ducked beneath the low hanging edges of the roof and stood up. His hair brushed the metal.

Pritti was crouched over something beyond the fire pit, her back to him. She was absorbed in her task and had not noticed him yet.

“Pritti,” he said, calmly enough.

She flinched, scrambled clumsily to her feet and turned to face him. Anger touched her features and not for the first time he noticed the slight tick in one eye that had been occurring more frequently. “Go home,” she told him. “I don’t want you here.”

“I know why you’re here, Pritti,” he said carefully. He touched his temple. “You might not have meant for me to see it, but I did.”

Her enormous eyes widened slightly. “You saw....” She bit her lip. “You saw nothing,” she said bitterly. “You just followed me.”

“Yes, but why would I follow you, if I had not seen where you were going...what you intended to do?”

“I would not have shown you that,” she said with flat denial.

He took a half-step closer, not enough to startle her. “I don’t think you can hide anything from me anymore. In the last few weeks, the connection between us has widened and grown smooth, to the point where we no longer have control over it.”

This clearly startled her. “I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she whispered.

“No more than I did,” he assured her. He took another step. “Let me see him, Pritti. Maybe I can help.”

She shook her head and tears glistened as they flew from her cheeks. “You can’t.”

“Let me see,” he repeated. “Do you think it will be a shock to me, after what I have seen in your mind?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath and turned back to the huddled mass of shadows behind her and crouched down. Demyan knelt beside her and let his eyes adjust to the dark. Gradually he made out the shape of a man lying curled in a loose fetal position, wearing a filthy, ragged dishdasha. Through the worn cloth, he could see the man was not much more than a collection of long bones, with skin stretched from joint to joint.

Pritti touched the man’s shoulder gently. “I brought food,” she whispered.

The man made a gurgling, grunting sound and the one eye that Demyan could see rolled to the side to look at her. That told him that the man wasn’t curled up in that position for warmth, but because his muscles and tendons had shortened to the point where he could not straighten his limbs anymore. Nor could he move his head to look at his sister. Only his eyes seemed to work.

“What is his name?” Demyan asked softly.

“Elon,” she said, opening up an insulated container. She smiled at the husk of a man lying on the old carpet before her. “You were always my favourite of all my brothers,” she told him. She lifted her hand toward Demyan. “And this is Demyan Romanov. From the Agency.”

“He can no longer speak?” Demyan asked.

“Not for many months now.” She smiled at Elon. “But we manage to work things out.” She stirred the food with a feeding spoon.

“How old is he?” he asked, for Elon looked like a feeble old man.

“Twenty-three.” She glanced at him, then back at the food she was steadily stirring, warming it. “I had fifteen half-brothers and sisters.”

“Had?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Elon has out-lasted everyone but me. He’s a stubborn cuss.” She dipped into the food, picked up a spoonful. “Time to eat, little brother.”

Demyan held his breath, as she lowered the spoon towards Elon’s mouth. The cracked, peeling lips opened just a little, probably as wide as he was able to open them. The spoon hovered at the lips. Pritti frowned, staring at the spoon, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Demyan could feel her heart trying to climb its way out of her ribcage, battering painfully.

Abruptly, she dropped the spoon and turned away, to sit on the bare sand, her legs spread and her hands clutched convulsively between them. She hung her head. “I can’t,” she cried softly. “I can’t do it.”

“Then don’t,” Demyan said simply. “We can find better care for him, somewhere else. This isn’t the only answer.” He picked up the poisoned pot of food that had slipped from her fingers and put it aside.

She lifted her head then and speared him with a look that carried a baffling range of emotions, more than he could fathom. “Touch him,” she said. “Reach inside.”

Carefully, Demyan laid his hand on Elon’s flank, feeling the brittle thinness beneath. He reached for the man’s mind through the physical contact.

Pain. Raw, fiery flames of pain. Agony. Bone-gnawing, never stopping.

He snatched his hand away and grabbed at his chest as his heart seemed to squeeze and halt. He kept very still, waiting for the violent reaction to pass. Then he looked at Pritti. She was watching him, was familiar with what he had sampled in Elon’s mind. Her eyes were full of tears again. “You see?” she said simply.

“Is that...is that all there is to him now?” He had not been able to glimpse anything of the man behind that wall of overwhelming agony.

“He can’t even scream anymore.” Pritti was still wringing her hands.

Horror touched him. “But he knows you. He is aware. Awake to all of it.”

“Yes,” she said simply. She separated her hands and rested one on his arm. “Demyan...would you...? You have ways...I know you can make it quick. Would you do this for Elon?”

“I have never—” He stopped, realizing the inaccuracy of what he had been about to say. He tried again. “Pritti, I’ve never taken a life when the symbiot was not controlling me.”

“But you can. You know how.”

“Yes,” he said with deep reluctance.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please, Demyan. I cannot. And it would be doing him a kindness. I tried to pay someone here to do it, but they think Elon is one of the old gods, returned to human form to suffer for his excesses and they won’t touch him.”

“Instead, they keep the fire for him,” Demyan finished, glancing at the carefully tended fire pit. “That is why he has not been molested in this city of thieves and murderers.”

Pritti looked away. After a long, throbbing moment of silence, she began to speak, almost to herself. “The humans who made us never noticed how their work impacted on the thalamus. They thought it was Parkinson’s disease, because the first symptoms of thalamus shut down are loss of memory and loss of sensations, then motor impairment, especially posture.” She looked back at Demyan and smiled. It was a painful expression. “We all know these facts. We learn them early. But it took the geneticists too many years to make the connection. Too many psi escaped to live on their own and by the time they figured out that the gene manipulation itself was causing the thalamus loss, it was too late. Thousands of us had been made. So they abandoned the project and left us to live or die as we may.”

Demyan could find nothing to say. He was familiar with the history of the psi , but had never been so personally associated with it.

“Many choose to die,” Pritti said flatly. “Not straight away, but when hope has truly gone that they might be the one psi spared the guaranteed fate.”

“Elon did not chose that path?” Demyan asked.

“He had no time to arrange it. His symptoms came on very early and very quickly. When he could no longer take care of the matter himself, he called to me, while his abilities were still intact. I came here for the first time about six months ago. I hadn’t seen him for twelve years before that.” She sniffed mightily and wiped her eyes. “So I am asking you to take care of Elon for me, because I’m weak and cowardly and can’t do it myself.”

“You’re not a coward,” he assured her. “Human, yes. But not a coward.”

“You’re insulting me?”

“Pritti, you’re more human than most of that race of man. I have spent centuries watching them and can say that with complete certainty.”

She sniffed doubtfully. “Will you do this, Demyan?”

“For you, yes. I will.” He took a deep breath, bracing himself. “Don’t watch me. Don’t stay.”

She nodded and moved out from under the roof, walking until he could no longer hear her footsteps. He turned to Elon. “Goodbye, Elon,” he murmured. “I promise you, this will not hurt. Your sister is right. I know what to do.”

* * * * *

The Agency satellite station. 2263 A.D.

Cáel slammed his fists against the door, pummelling it. “Damn it, open the door, Ryan!”

He turned to Nia. “Can you override the lock? Can you open it?”

She fastened the dress closed and was completely respectable again. “I could, but why would I? He has made his wishes perfectly clear.” She spoke in a monotone.

The intercom on her desk buzzed.

“Don’t answer that!” he commanded as she reached for it.

It buzzed again.

He strode over to her and gripped her arms. “Open the goddamn door, Nia, or I’ll turn you over my knee and paddle your ass like a schoolgirl’s, so help me.” His temples were throbbing along with his heart and he knew he had to reel in his temper before it spewed all over the room and did permanent damage.

Nia blinked. There was a tiny furrow between her brows and she looked like she was having trouble processing what he had said.

Shock
, he realized. Or what passed for shock in vampire terms. A log jam of thoughts that substituted for emotions.

It checked his temper and put it on the back burner. “Nia,” he said more gently. “You have to deal with Ryan. Now. You can’t just let this lie.”

She swallowed. “He wants it that way,” she whispered.

“No, he bloody well doesn’t!” Cáel retorted. “He just doesn’t know how to do anything else anymore. He’s stuck, like you’re stuck. But you’ve hurt him...” He saw her wince and shook her a little. “Nia, it’s done, but now his defences are wide open and bleeding. You have to take this tiny opportunity and use it before he repairs them, because what he’ll rebuild will be thicker and infinitely harder to break through.”

Her marvellous green eyes finally focused on him. “Yes,” she murmured. “You’re right.”

Cáel sighed in relief. “Go,” he said, pushing her toward the door. “Go and get him.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Cáel...”

“Just hurry up, will you?” he told her, injecting irritation into his voice. “Ryan hates tardy women.”

Her mouth curled up in a smile. “He does, doesn’t he?” She walked across the room, her deliciously curved hips swaying slightly in the sinful green velvet dress. The door opened for her and closed behind her.

Cáel spun away, to look at Earth’s dark face. He rubbed furiously at his eyes as they stung and his fingers came away moist. “Ah, fuck...” he whispered. “You’re just human, Stelios. They don’t care. Give it up.”

He leaned his fist against the cool glass and rested his head against his arm, watching Earth turn, accepting and familiarizing himself with the taste of loss.

“Cáel,” Nia said, behind him.

He turned. “Need something?” he asked, striving for a casual, neutral tone.

“He’s not there. Not his quarters or his office. Brenden says his bio pattern doesn’t register on the station at all.”

Cáel pushed himself away from the window. “He’s jumped somewhere. New Orleans...” He shook his head. “No, he’d know I’d think of that. And it’s for drinking and good times.” He looked at Nayara. “He must have half a dozen bolt holes spread across history. Where would he go to
really
hide away. An escape that he thinks no one knows about?”

“What makes you think I would know about it if Ryan believes no one does?” Nia asked curiously.

“You know each other so well,” Cáel said.

Nayara tilted her head, looking at him. “So do you,” she said. “You know us almost as well. Where do
you
think Ryan jumped to?”